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Wonder Boys
****
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Bromborough)
Released in the UK by UIP on November 3, 2000; certificate 15; 112 minutes;
country of origin USA; aspect ratio 2.35:1
Directed by Curtis Hanson; produced by
Curtis Hanson, Scott Rudin.
Written by Steve Kloves; based on the novel by Michael
Chabon.
Photographed by Dante Spinotti; edited by Dede
Allen.
CAST.....
Michael Douglas..... Grady Tripp
Tobey Maguire..... James Leer
Frances McDormand..... Sara Gaskell
Robert Downey Jr..... Terry Crabtree
Katie Holmes..... Hannah Green
Rip Torn..... Q
Mess is excruciating to experience and hilarious
to watch. The genius of "Wonder Boys" is that it sees it from
both sides, juxtaposing tender emotion with elements of farce in every scene.
To watch this movie is to experience a delightful sustained involvement in
the bittersweet, to lose yourself in the material, and occasionally break
into fits of laughter. This, dear readers, is what's known as
greatness.
Michael Douglas stars as Grady Tripp, an ageing
English professor who wrote a great novel seven years ago and has still not
released a follow-up. His life is a shambles, with problems both sombre and
absurd. In the former category, his wife has left him, he's having an affair
with the chancellor of the university, he smokes too much pot, and his book
is so out of control that he's written two thousand pages and still cannot
think of an ending. In the latter, he's driving around with a dead dog in
his trunk, which was shot by his favourite student, who follows him around
telling fake stories about his childhood after sharing drugs with him at
a literary festival, while his editor is in town with a transvestite, and
a midget James Brown lookalike is stalking him and jumping on his
car.
With all this going on, it's inevitable that the
sober and the ridiculous are going to run into each other. That could have
ruined the movie -- it could have gone out of control, become confusing or
disorganized -- but the director, Curtis Hanson, has such confidence, and
lets it play out at such a natural, gentle pace, that we feel we're in safe
hands, and it becomes the movie's greatest strength. "Wonder Boys" contains
colourful oddities, but they don't take over the movie in a circus of comic
frenzy; Hanson trusts their intrinsically humorous power and lets the onscreen
tempo remain calm, so the comedy and drama have simultaneous equal
weight.
It's quite a spellbinding thing. When Douglas
and his student (Tobey Maguire) are loading the dead dog into the car, it's
presented as matter-of-factly as anything else in the film, but we laugh,
because it's such a preposterous, unexpected screwball situation. At the
same time, the characters really do earn our care, because they're believable
people put into a colourful plot, and there are charming scenes of quiet
wit, like the one in which Douglas and Maguire gaze at a jacket worn by Marilyn
Monroe on her wedding day… or where Douglas and his old pal agent (Robert
Downey Jr) play a bar game where they spy on complete strangers and try to
create fictional backstories about them. Douglas, Maguire, Downey, and the
other leads, Frances McDormand and Katie Holmes, talk to each other in a
way that flows, respecting each other's intelligence, exuding history and
familiarity; and it's all set amid snow and cold winter air, an atmosphere
which is good for highlighting the affection between people in sweet flicks
like this, maybe because the weather somehow brings them together in the
constant need for warmth, or maybe because human faces look that little bit
more meaningful against a barren backdrop.
The performance Douglas gives here is like a response
to the accusations that he's been refusing to grow up, which have come thick
and fast, what with his relationship with Catherine Zeta Jones, and constant
acceptance of flashy star roles. Here he appears dishevelled, disorientated,
stubbly, stoned -- wandering around in a dressing gown a lot of the time,
with a weary look in his eyes and a certain resignation. Yet he doesn't let
us give up hope for Grady Tripp, and the movie doesn't cheat by letting things
work out for him -- Douglas was the right man for this part, because no matter
how much you scruff him up, there's a wisdom and grace to his tone of voice
that alludes to a fire still burning inside. In the hands of a lesser actor
Grady could have been an irritating narcissist who we wouldn't want the movie
to revolve around -- Douglas makes him an intriguing and engaging character,
a man who we want to see break free from his own traps, and allow himself
the peace of mind he deserves.
Hanson's previous film was "L.A. Confidential"
(1997), a period thriller that could hardly be more different from "Wonder
Boys" in its texture, plot or mood. Yet the two pictures share a lot of
qualities. Both based on novels, they contain rich details, tonal freedom,
engaging asides, and they respect our intelligence enough to let us concentrate
on a fair number of main events and characters. Just like with good books,
we get deeply drawn in, and as my colleague Colin Kennedy wrote in Empire
magazine, the film "percolates our subconscious". Now I'm probably rambling,
so I'll shut up, but let me just say this is a rich, funny, warm film, lush
in comic invention, which tells a good story filled with the kind of people
we'd want to meet, and sometimes do. Beautiful.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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