Wonder Boys (2000): Dir: Curtis Hanson / Cast: Michael Douglas, Tobey Mcguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes, Robert Downey Jr.: Intelligent comedy about brilliant individuals overwhelmed with dread. Michael Douglas plays a professor with writer's block. Tobey Maguire plays a burned out student whom Douglas allows vacancy until his parents are located. Interesting concept that contains a couple unnecessary subplots involving a stolen Marilyn Monroe jacket or the dead dog. Directed by Curtis Hanson as an excellent followup to his masterpiece L.A. Confidential. Douglas struggles with work and commitment as he cannot seem to finish his novel yet distracted by infidelity and his social surroundings. Maguire is superb as a student caught up in theft and drugs but through the care of others, finds redemption. Frances McDormand plays Douglas's infidelity partner whom is pregnant. One wonders whether her final decision is the right one. Katie Holmes plays a student with an obvious attraction to Douglas but fortunately doesn't act upon it. Robert Downey Jr steals moments as Douglas's editor but he is more or less curious as to whether anything is worth publishing. Grand scale screenplay full of detail about inner brilliance within unlawful nature. It shows just what a mess life can become before being torn in all directions like the pages of his new book scattering through the air and into the unknown. Score: 9 / 10

Coming-of- age is not limited to the transition from adolescence to adulthood. A coming-of-age emotionally can occur at any time in one's life. Winner of the AFI award for Movie of the Year in 2001, Wonder Boys features a commanding performance by Michael Douglas as Grady Tripp, a once great novelist who is now a burned out, pot-smoking English Professor at a college in Pittsburgh. Tripp has been working on a massive novel that has grown to 2611 pages for the last seven years, but who has lost the inspiration to complete it.Set on the college campus, Professor Tripp is not having a good day. His wife has just left him, his lover (Frances McDormand), wife of the University Chancellor (Richard Thomas), tells him that she's pregnant, his flamboyant gay editor Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey, Jr.) is coming from New York for the college's annual writer's festival, and one of his most promising students, James Leer (Tobey McGuire), a brilliant but suicidal young writer, has attached himself to Tripp.Out of these many and varied crises comes a comedy of wit and intelligence that includes such bizarre circumstances as the theft of Marilyn Monroe's fur coat, the unfortunate demise of the Chancellor's dog, a stolen Cadillac, a novel blowing in the wind, and much more. These strange occurrences bring with them the opportunity for Tripp to reassess his life and discover what new directions are open to him. Wonder Boys is brilliantly written, funny, and touching and one of my favorite films of the last decade. It is one of the few films I know that are comfortable with smoking pot and having sex, both gay and straight, not as a manipulative plot device or a display of weakness, but as a part of normal, every day life.

Alternating between an oddball comedy, a surreal thriller and a meditation on the nature of writing, Wonder Boys is an original and thought-provoking film that doesn't quite reach its goal. It's unclassifiable and virtually indescribable, yet all the stylistic tools it uses seem to come directly from any one of the genres it's comprised of; it doesn't do enough to create its own unique style, and therefore fails to focus and become a unique non-genre piece. In other words, it feels too often like a mainstream Hollywood affair, when it's anything but.Wonder Boys is adapted from a very early work by Michael Chabon, to my taste one of the finest American novelists of the last twenty years, and his lack of experience is felt in the script as it is in the novel. It's filled with lots of great ideas, but it lacks in that ever-important focus - and so remains unsatisfying. It's an interesting movie that's worth checking out, especially for those interested in writing and authors, but it's not likely to become an all-time favorite.

An English professor's wife leaves him while he carries on an affair with a married colleague and tries to overcome writer's block. The characters are interesting and the academic setting is nicely evoked. Unfortunately, the film runs out of steam about two-thirds of the way through. Douglas heads a good cast, and he gives a terrific performance as the professor who is having a very bad weekend. Maguire plays a genius student who is is not all there. It's not a bad performance, but Maquire seems to play the same character in every movie he makes. McDormand and Downey are fine as Douglas's lover and literary agent, respectively.