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Finding Forrester
***
Cinema
Releases - February 23, 2001
Certificate PG. 136 minutes. Directed by Gus
Van Sant. Written by Mike Rich. Starring Rob Brown, Sean Connery, Busta Rhymes,
F. Murray Abraham, Anna Paquin, April Grace, Michael
Pitt.
"Finding Forrester" stars Rob Brown
as Jamal, a black kid from a less affluent part of New York who's a whiz
on the basketball court and also has a hidden gift for lit-crit assignments
and creative writing. The plot of the movie involves him hooking up with
William Forrester, played by Sean Connery as a J.D. Salinger figure -- a
snappy old man who wrote a great novel a couple of decades ago and now lives
as a bitter recluse. The two meet accidentally, tentatively form a bond,
and gradually, to their surprise but not ours, the old man ends up becoming
a mentor to the kid, and the kid helps the old man come out of his
shell.
This is familiar territory, not just in its broad
outlines, but even in detailed rhythm a copy of the great "Good Will Hunting"
(1997), with Brown stepping into Matt Damon's shoes, Busta Rhymes as the
Ben Affleck figure, love interest Anna Paquin instead of Minnie Driver, and,
obviously, Sean Connery instead of Robin Williams as the wounded mentor who
needs to search his own soul as well as that of his pupil.
Although if you're going to see one of these two
pictures, "Good Will Hunting", which had richer humour and a less recycled
feel, is clearly the way to go, "Finding Forrester" is still a good watch.
Right off the bat, the fact that this time the youngster is a black kid desperate
to better himself and get out of the slums rather than an arrogant, tortured
white kid lacking the self-esteem to get himself out of the toilet, gives
the whole enterprise a changed, if not quite as complex, mood. Connery's
situation, fairly obviously, also has a different flavour to that of Robin
Williams's widowed psychiatrist. The drama is competently handled, never
lapsing too far into obviousness or sentimentality, and with great performances
all round, not just in the central relationship, but also the peripheral
ones; Paquin, the young actress we first saw in "The Piano", continues to
impress in the way she tries new moods, new positions, new
accents.
"Finding Forrester" is an easy watch with just
enough of a feeling of prestige and respectability about it to please serious
moviegoers. On the other hand, I'm getting rather concerned about Gus Van
Sant. This guy used to direct dangerous movies like "Drugstore Cowboy" and
"My Own Private Idaho" -- some accused him of selling out with "Good Will
Hunting", a feel-good movie released in the Oscar season, and it's hard to
argue with that when he not only doesn't move on from his dalliance with
studio filmmaking but sticks around for the rehash. Now he's proved he can
make these pictures as well as they can be made, it's time for him to go
back to making better ones.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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