Wonder Boys

Released 2000
Stars Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Robert Downey Jr.
Directed by Curtis Hanson

An unfinished novel, a stolen car, a murdered pet, an unstable student, a fed up wife, a pregnant love - it's safe to say that Grady Tripp has a number of issues to deal with this weekend. Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years - not since he wrote his award-winning Great American Novel seven years ago. It's hardly surprising, then, that his college's annual literary festival fills the former wonder boy with more than his usual quota of self-doubt and anxiety. This festival weekend, however, proves even worse than he could have imagined as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy, James Lear. He's Grady's most gifted writing student. He's also a fluent liar whose peculiar behavior launches the professor on a picaresque odyssey of self-discovery.

Summary by www.netflix.com

"Wonder Boys" is an example of why movies are one of my big hobbies. It's smart and funny with well-realized characters that combine for a terrific film. Michael Douglas slips easily into the skin of this pot-head writer/teacher who is lazily tripping through life, and Robert Downey Jr. is delicious as the editor (although I swear he's essentially playing his real-life persona). The opening scene was ironic for me as I recognized some similarities between the James Leer character and myself. I too was the talented one in my creative writing class who wrote only about death. My classmates would exhort me to write something light, but I just didn't have it in me. Unlike James, however, I didn't have an irrepressible need to write, and I didn't have the talent to leave college and publish a novel! At any rate, there were two reasons I didn't give this four stars, even though it deserved it. The first was how James went from someone who wouldn't touch drugs to someone who would shove anything he could into his body within the span of two scenes. I know it's because he idolized his teacher and wanted to emulate him, but it didn't quite ring true. The second reason was the treatment of the jacket at the end. Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) had an epiphany in the car and realized where his life should go. At that moment he accepted responsibility as a virtue, and he should have chosen to return the jacket. It's a literary device to nobly make a sacrifice at the end, but it would have been stronger if he had taken the priceless jacket back. After all, his sacrifice was his 2000+ page book. Regardless, this is a wonderful movie. --Bill Alward, October 20, 2001