Wonder Boys

I have to admit that when i first saw the trailer for this film, I thought, "Sweet Jesus, this looks a lot like Rushmore!" complete with a dishelved Michael Douglas doing the Bill Murray/Mr. Blume thing and Tobey Maguire as a rambunctious, upstart kid a la Max Fischer. Man, was I wrong. Wonder Boys is the kind of small, oddball little film with a definite, quirky, dark sense of humour and a cast of eccentric characters that are never colourful for the sake of it. Michael Douglas disappears completely into the role of Grady Tripp, a burnt out English professor, who once wrote a much celebrated novel but has since been having a hard time with his follow-up. He just keeps writing and writing with no end in sight (current page count sits around 2100 pages!). the film starts at the beginning of a truly hellish day for Tripp as his wife leaves him, his girlfriend tells him she's pregnant and he almost gets killed by her husband's blind dog. throw in an eccentric writing protege (Tobey Maguire), Tripp's bi-sexual literary agent (Robert Downey, Jr.) and his transvestite date, and you've got quite an interesting mix of characters. in some ways, Douglas' character is a pot-smoking burn-out like the Dude from THE BIG LEBOWSKI. he is content to live outside of society, putt around, write his novel, teaching his classes but when he crosses paths with Maguire's character, he realizes that he's got to change. Douglas is more than up for this role. i'm not a huge fan of the man's work (WALL STREET and THE GAME excepted) but he's perfectly cast in this film. he hits just the right note of world-weary cynicism but with a romantic streak buried underneath. you can tell that he's got the capacity to do something about his miserable lot in life and during the course of the film his character undergoes a fascinating arc. the real stand out of this film, though, is Tobey Maguire. i've only seen him in a few things, here and there and i never really noticed him all that much before (although, he was great in PLEASANTVILLE. everyone in the film keeps harping on what a genius writer Douglas' character is, but it quickly becomes apparent that Maguire's character is the true genius. he writes pages and pages of beautiful prose in minutes. and like any true talent, it just comes pouring out of him effortlessly. Maguire nails that kind of visionary talent perfectly. his character is so different from his peers and you are never sure what makes him tick, until 3/4 of the way through when another side of his intriguing personality is revealed. at first, you think his character is pretty one-dimensional -- the oddball genius -- but Maguire provides all sorts of layers and subtle nuances to his character that are great to watch. it doesn't hurt that Steve Kloves' script is a solid piece of writing. clever, insightful dialogue that tells you volumes about these characters. the dialogue is humourous and offbeat in one scene, touching and thoughtful in the next. Kloves also wisely avoids the usual cliches... ie. the romance between the older man and younger woman. just when you think it's going to go there, the film veers off to something different and better. every character has their moment to really define themselves with the possible exception of Katie Holmes who seems to be sorely underused. which is too bad, really, because the scenes she does have are good. it's nice to see that she can do more than just DAWSON'S CREEK. and lastly, the mood and atmosphere of this movie is so magical. to me, the best films are ones that you lose yourself in completely. the characters and the world they inhabit are so real, so three-dimensional that you can't help but get sucked in. WONDER BOYS does that so well. the attention to detail -- a snowy winter in Pittsburgh -- is beautiful realized. esp. the night time scenes, like one in which Douglas and Maguire talk outside in a backyard while the snow falls gently around them... are so well done, i felt like i was right there. and isn't that what a good film should do? make it able for you to escape for a couple of hours? hard to believe that the guy who made L.A. CONFIDENTIAL did this one. a complete change of pace and mood and... everything. amazing stuff. anyways, i reallly dug WONDER BOYS. it's the first film i've seen this year that has really affected me in a profoundly personal way. a film that as soon as it was over, i wanted to go right back in and watch it again.

At a recent Dylan concert, my friend Charlie pointed out a shiny gold statuette placed unobtrusively atop one of the speakers way in the back of the stage. It was the Oscar which Dylan won for his Best Song "Things Have Changed" from this movie, from "The Wonder Boys." I was glad that my friend pointed out that gold thing in the background because it added a whole other dimension to the concert. There was a story behind the statue - the whole "Wonder Boys" story and I was glad to be familiar with it. No, Bob never mentioned the statue. Why should he? He's Bob Dylan. He just did his thing, played his music.

Life presents us with the absurd as much as it does the mundane. Watching the way people handle the good and bad drama in their life is a hobby of mine. I liked the way Bob Dylan kept his "Wonder Boys" gold quietly present.

Michael Douglas' Grady Tripp doesn't call attention to his abnormally odd weekend, either. Douglas' Grady always maintains his cool even with a transvestite's tuba and his mistress' husband's dead dog and "the Crabtree pharmacopoeia" in the trunk of his ass-marked car. Grady deals with all of it. Grady deals with everything this peculiar weekend shows him - with a calm voice and an attitude mellowed from either age or experience or pot. In the here and now, he is calm and quiet but we all know that he'll have his anxiety or heart attack quietly near offstage with as few crowds and drama about them as possible.

Grady speaks lines like "gimme the gun, James" matter of factly, the same way that his married girlfriend tells him she's pregnant, the same way he'd order a drink from Oola. Why add drama and histrionics to the mix? He is what he is. Things are the way they are - even though things have changed.

One of the things that separates one human from another is the way we deal with change. isn't it? Personally? I want to hear about the absurdities of life. I like observing how people deal with it all. I like those stories.

Tripp's fellow travelers are in flux too - it's not just Grady going through change - his wife (unseen), his mistress (France McDormand), his editor (Robert Downey, Jr.), his students (Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes) - all of them are experiencing an extraordinary weekend but there's hardly a voice raised in the storytelling.

The soundtrack alone is worth the viewing, thanks, Bob Dylan! And Curtis Hansen, Michael Chabon - tell me another story, please! If you can manage to bring a similarly wonderful ensemble cast - even better!

WONDER BOYS (2000) **** Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr., Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Richard Thomas, Jane Adams, Michael Cavadias, Philip Bosco.

Michael Douglas is not one of the best actors of comedy .until now. In the adaptation of Michael Chabon's excellent novel of has-beens, chemical imbibing and a 2 day journey of self-discovery, he emerges as if an old pro in one memorable turn as its antihero, Grady Tripp (great name!)

Tripp is - to make a funny here - having a bad trip in one disastrous day. It begins when his (unseen) wife leaves him. From there it only gets worse. Tripp is a tenured English professor at a Pittsburgh university and something of a has-been downward spiral loser (he once was praised as a `wonder boy' for his first novel of acclaim and has been 7 years down the road struggling to finish its behemoth (over 2000 pages) follow-up) who has many balls juggling in the air as a weekend of literary workshops awaits his presence: namely his affair with his boss's wife, the Chancellor, Sara Gaskell (Mc Dormand giving another patented flawless performance) who announces with perfect timing that she's pregnant. To make matters even worse, its at their cocktail party for a loquacious literary figurehead improbably known as `Q' (Torn, subdued avuncularity) and in tow are his ambisexual New York editor Terry Crabtree (the always welcome Downey) hounding him for a peek at his epic tome who has brought along a titaness of a transvestite (Cavadias) he met on the plane and Grady's two prized pupils, the warm, glowing (and obviously seductive) Hannah Green (the down right sexy baby fat sweet Holmes) and heir apparent, suicidally tormented chronic storyteller/liar James Leer (a star making turn by the incredible Maguire, showcasing his low-key subtle skills at full tilt). Both are perfect..

What ensues is a series of bad timing, unfortunate luck, a dead dog, mistaken identity, pill and alcohol binging (think a less venal `Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas'), secrets revealed, the pilfering of Marilyn Monroe's wedding coat (don't ask, trust me it works!) and gradually the understandment of a particularly Zen-like kwon : it doesn't matter what one thinks of another when it comes to being a creative, artistic genius.

Douglas is a revelation as a bonafide movie-star allowing the actor he's always had inside (the last time I can recall a `real' character he's done is the ticking human time bomb in `Falling Down') by allowing to deglam his persona of a slick, lady-killing cocksure swaggardly handsome devil and here allow himself to be absorbed by a lumpy, pot-smoking, hazy for the future shlump who discovers the truth lies within. And of course that little realization is by no means a slight since it is offered by the melancholic Maguire who exudes a spacey sadness when he's not busy polluting his body to cover his pain(s) or narrating his own assisted run to the men's room to recover (hilarious by the way). His James Leer is Sancho Panza to Grady's Don Quixote in a twisted sense. Downey has fun as usual as the straw that stirs the drink of debauchery and chicanery that occurs.

Filmmaker Steve Kloves (who was originally set to direct and is best known for his debut with the fabulous `The Fabulous Baker Boys') adapts the off-beat quirky novel excellently to the screen with some great dialogue and unique situations (i.e. how to make the bad joke of a dead dog a good running gag).

Director Curtis Hanson, better known for gritty noir influenced flicks like `Bad Influence' and the Oscar-winning `L.A. Confidential' plumbs the depths of humanity through humor and succeeds by making it a fun-filled ride into the inner sanctum of all artists: self-destruction is easy, self-acceptance isn't always.

Michael Douglas has always been one of my favorite actors. He deserved his Oscar for Wall Street, commanded every second of screen time he had in Falling Down, and has given some of the most underrated comic performances in history in Romancing the Stone and War of the Roses. But I'd have to give his performance in Wonder Boys as his best. His turn as stoner college professor Grady Tripp is the model for the laid back, totally likeable and loveable protaginist. He's the kind of professor I dream of having in real life.

After watching this movie, I seriously wanted to go and write a book. For any of you blocked writers out there, just pop in Wonder Boys and you have your muse.

Sometimes, movie makers manage to create a world that one cannot resist being pulled into. In this world one lingers for a couple of hours, waiting for the next minute with a smile on one's lips. "Wonder Boys" is one of the best movies of recent years in that it successfully drags the viewer along on it's whimsical and sometimes really strange journey.

The characters are believable despite their alien behaviors - the only normal person around might just be Hannah Green (Holmes), skirting around the main characters like an observing ghost. Douglas is pulling off what must be his best performance ever, portraying a decaying, once-famous addict writer with a severe case of reversed writer's block: he can't finish his novel and he can't stop writing... Tobey Maguire is very well cast with his innocent yet troubled look, and Frances McDormand is just as she always is: fantastic.

I'm very impressed with this film, which took me off-guard. Not many I know went to see it. I'm glad I did.