WONDER BOYS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****):  **
Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is having writer's block.  It
has been 7 years since his big novel was published to critical acclaim,
and he's still working on his next novel.  Right now he's stuck on page
2612.  It was going to be a modest 200-page affair, but he has somehow
lost control.  Could it be that he's been chain-smoking pot the whole
time?  Nope, that can't be it, he claims, since he was stoned while
creating his last book.
Curtis Hanson's WONDER BOYS, scripted by Steven Kloves and based on
Michael Chabon's novel, is an eclectic collection of quirky characters
and incidents that never amount to anything.  Like a RUSHMORE-LITE,
WONDER BOYS is set at a school in which many bizarre little incidents
occur.  Unlike RUSHMORE, WONDER BOYS forgets to be funny.
As the story opens, Grady's young wife has left him, which is something
that she and other wives of his have done before.  With a worn face like
a well-read novel and with a tendency to pass out, Grady doesn't exactly
seem the type that would attract a series of women, but he does.
To make matters worse, Grady's mistress, the University's chancellor
(Frances McDormand), announces that he has gotten her pregnant.  Her
husband (Richard Thomas) is the head of the English department and
Grady's boss.
In town for the school's annual writers' festival is Grady's editor
(Robert Downey Jr.) who hopes that Grady's novel is finally finished.
The story heaps on strange little episodes and quirky characters like
planting masses of seeds in the garden with the hopes that some of them
will germinate, but few do.
Also in the story are two of Grady's students who stay with him.  One
(Tobey Maguire) is a brilliant novelist and accomplished liar, and the
other is a gorgeous girl (Katie Holmes) with a major crush on Grady.
There's also a dead dog in Grady's car trunk and a stolen dress that
once belonged to Marilyn Monroe.
One scene has a character flipping the dial on the television.  Sadly,
you realize that what's on the tube is more interesting that the movie
itself.
The predictable story has old-fashioned writers who eschew computers,
preferring typewriters instead.  Grady doesn't make any copies of his
tome.  Any guess what will happen in one of the scenes?
The movie spends the whole time setting up the plot.  When the ending
credits roll, you realize that it was never able to get in gear.
I must confess that I have a personal hang-up about comedies.  If they
aren't funny, I have trouble liking them, no matter how well cast they
are.  And there aren't many laughs in the rambling WONDER BOYS, or any
characters worth caring about.
WONDER BOYS runs 1:48.  It is rated R for language and drug content and
would be acceptable for older teenagers.
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