Cinema Revisited: Wonder Boys (2000)

Directed by Curtis Hanson. Starring Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr, Tobey Maguire, Rip Torn, Richard Thomas, Katie Holmes. Released February 25, 2000. Running time: 111 minutes

Quirky, absorbing drama with comic highlight, with Michael Douglas as Grady, a successful novelist who is struggling to complete a second book. His day job is acting as a creative writing professor at a University. His third wife just left him. He has gotten a married colleague (Frances McDormand) pregnant. Grady's quirky student James (Tobey Maguire) is the best writer in his class, but also one of the most bizarre, unsettling people he has known. Grady's editor Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey jr.) is closeted gay and a laughingstock in the publishing world who needs another success.

Curtis Hanson explores these characters in a disjoined, compelling narrative that weaves and twists its way through a world of literate, interesting characters who each have their own idiosyncrasies. Based on a book by Michael Chabon, with a screenplay by Steve Kloves, Hanson brings focus to the aimless narrative and gives each character enough of a purpose to make even the most absurd scenes acceptable in context.

Shot on location in Pittsburgh, where the novel was set, Michael Douglas gained 25 pounds for the role and agreed to work well below his usual fee, so interested he was in the character. Filming was done at the time when Robert Downey jr. had gotten into some real trouble and had difficulty getting work. He gave his word to Hanson that he'd behave professionally, and he did for the entire winter shoot on location. Upon completing his role, Downey returned to California and violated his parole. When Hanson heard that Bob Dylan was a fan of his previous film, "L.A. Confidential," he asked Dylan to record a song for the film. Dylan agreed, and his song won an Oscar.

"Wonder Boys' is an extremely honest film, offering the academic intelligence and the quirkly personalities of its characters with striking accuracy. Michael Douglas, whiskered and disheveled, abusing alochol and drugs, struggling with personal emotion and creative limitation, lumbers and staggers through the film with acerbic commentary along with a genuine affection for James and for Crabtree. Tobey Maguire, a movie geek with genius-level literary ability, never seems to be completely aware of his surroundings, but his devotion to, and respect for, Grady is both moving and inspiring. Robert Downey is all jittery confusion and desperation one of the finest performances of his career.

Frances McDormand becomes an anchoring presence in her fleeting scenes with Douglas, having to reconcile her status as a chancellor, and a wife, who has suddenly become pregnant in middle age by one of her professors. Richard Thomas, as her husband, decades separating him from TV iconography as John Boy Walton, is calmness over subdued rage. James even shoots his blind dog as it attacks Grady. Rip Torn as a commercially successful writer who is filled with smug pretense is brilliantly repugnant, while Katie Holmes has never been more beautiful as the student who rents a room at Grady's house, and hangs out with James, bringing a level of common sense to the quirkiness by which she is surrounded.

Unfortunately, the brilliance of "Wonder Boys" was lost on mainstream audiences. Grossing only around $34 million worldwide against a $55 million dollar budget, it was a complete flop at the box office.

But still the film holds up two decades after its release as an unconventional film about peculiar people who are as intelligent as they are unusual.

And it is a film that this writer would passionately recommended to anyone.