Wonder Boys
USA/Germany/UK/Japan 2000
Reviewed by Charlotte O'Sullivan
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Pittsburgh, the present. After meeting his editor Crabtree, English professor Grady Tripp, still working on his second novel, goes to a party hosted by head of department Walter and his wife Sara. There, Sara tells him she's pregnant with his child; Grady responds that his wife Emily has just left him. Grady's talented student James turns up at the party; Grady takes him to Walter and Sara's bedroom and shows him Walter's Marilyn Monroe memorabilia. In a panic James shoots Walter's aggressive dog dead. Grady hides its body in his car. Later, at the launch of a literary festival, Sara tells Grady she's decided to abort. In a bar, Crabtree, James and Grady make up a story about a customer whom they decide to call Vernon. Outside, Vernon attacks them, claiming Grady's car is his. James stays the night at Grady's; while he sleeps, Grady discovers James has stolen Monroe's jacket from Walter's collection.
The next day, James accompanies Grady on his trip to visit Emily at her parents' house, but she's not there. On the way back, Grady realises that James is lying about his impoverished past. He rings up James' grandparents who collect him. James leaves a manuscript of his first novel in the car and Grady reads it. When he gets home he discovers Hannah, his lodger and student, has been reading his novel. Grady and Crabtree set off to talk with James. By this time, Walter suspects James of stealing the jacket. Grady discovers his car, which contains the jacket, has been stolen. He and Crabtree trace the theft of the car to Vernon and an altercation takes place during which Grady's manuscript is scattered to the winds. Grady gives up on reclaiming the jacket and tells Walter that he and Sara are in love. Crabtree gets Walter to drop the charges against James, whose novel he intends to publish. Grady loses his job; he and Sara have their baby.
Review
Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys, unlike his last film - sleek cop noir LA Confidential - is something of a hybrid. Adapted from Michael Chabon's novel, it is most obviously a coming of (middle) age drama, which like American Beauty features references to weed, the promise of sex with young girls and emotional bonding. One level down, it's also a series of elaborate in-jokes about success. And, underpinning it all, it's a road movie about the need to stay still.
But with so much to say, Hanson's movie is too frenetic. Chabon has a great ear for academic pomposity - and there's nothing wrong with Hanson's casting jokes. Just one example is Richard Thomas' stiff-necked university head of department and cuckold Walter Gaskell. Having played John Boy in television's The Waltons (the role we all remember him for), Thomas seemed to have peaked too soon, while John Boy himself, like this film's central character novelist Grady, was a wonder boy - his first novel was a success, his second a flop. Sadly, there's no time to enjoy such subtleties.
The same applies to the characters. They're all potentially fascinating, but aside from Grady and his precocious student James we hardly get to know any of them. The predicament of Frances McDormand's Sara, for instance, is complex: now approaching middle age, she's desperate to have a child with the hapless Grady but you never understand why she married the ridiculous Walter in the first place. And what is it about Grady that fascinates his student Hannah, a girl who could easily find love elsewhere? The film isn't interested in answering such questions, however, because it appears to believe that Grady Tripp's attractiveness tells us all we need to know - once he turns up, women simply want whatever he can give them.
Neither the screenplay (by Steve Kloves), nor Michael Douglas, who plays Grady, fully convinces us of this charm. Grady is certainly colourful (his pink dressing gown alone makes the film worth watching) but he's not particularly profound. In fact, his concerns couldn't be more conventional: should he treat James like a son (to be nurtured) or as a brother (with whom to compete)? Should he sleep with a woman who wants to make him a father or a girl young enough to be his daughter? Douglas' performance is one of broad strokes, his body twisting and turning to underline each comic effect. This would matter less if we weren't so used to this type, but dilapidated liberals are two a penny, and Douglas struggles to make the schtick his own.
Grady's worshipful student James is also hard to pin down, though in this case the actor, Tobey Maguire, is not to blame. With his soft, curvaceous cheeks and ever-so-sulky mouth, James begins as a wonderfully ambiguous creation. Another performer might have reduced the desire to get his hands on Walter's prized treasure, a jacket worn by Marylin Monroe, or the Kenneth Anger obsession to camp quirks. Maguire plays them perfectly straight and proves truly unnerving. Once Grady has read, and enjoyed, James' novel, however, a mist seems to descend. The scene in which we discover James has slept with books editor Crabtree, for instance, tells us nothing: has James been sexually awakened, or has he merely satisfied a desire to be screwed by the man who discovered his hero Grady? Given the allusions to the ruthless world of All about Eve (1950), we might even suspect he's slept with Crabtree to secure a publishing deal. But with nothing to go on, the episode becomes just another wacky turn in the plot.
The feeling remains that, just as James and Crabtree and Grady enjoy telling "stories", we too have been sold a line. Everything points to the fact that it's Grady and James who should get together. Grady invites his charge to a party and almost immediately takes him to the master bedroom, where he unlocks a closet from which James proceeds to take a treasured item. Which is never, in fact, put back. Whether you see this as an emotional or even a sexual metaphor, it's unmistakably intense, and yet their relationship is never to be. As a gritty slice of academic life, Wonder Boys is unsatisfactory. Read as Grady's fantasy of 'going straight', however, it works just fine.
Credits
- Director
- Curtis Hanson
- Producers
- Scott Rudin
- Curtis Hanson
- Screenplay
- Steve Kloves
- Based on the novel by
- Michael Chabon
- Director of Photography
- Dante Spinotti
- Editor
- Dede Allen
- Production Designer
- Jeannine Oppewall
- Music
- Christopher Young
- ©MFF Feature Film Productions GmbH & Co. KG
- Production Companies
- Mutual Film Company and Paramount Pictures present a Scott Rudin/
Curtis Hanson production - Produced in association with BBC/Marubeni/
Toho-Towa and Tele München - In association with MFF Feature Film Productions GmbH & Co. KG
- Executive Producers
- Adam Schroeder
- Ned Dowd
- Associate Producer
- Lisa Grundy
- Production Executive
- Scott Rudin Productions:
- Mark Roybal
- Production Co-ordinator
- Janice F. Sperling
- Unit Production Manager
- Zane Weiner
- Location Manager
- Jeff Stimmel
- Post-production Supervisor
- Pat Rand
- Assistant Directors
- Douglas C. Metzger
- Jonathan McGarry
- Annie Loeffler
- Script Supervisor
- Eva Z. Cabrera
- Casting
- Mali Finn
- Associate:
- Emily Schweber
- Location Associate:
- Donna Belajac
- Voice:
- Loop Troop
- Camera Operators
- Gary Jay
- Kyle Rudolph
- Steadicam Operators
- Kyle Rudolph
- Duane 'DC' Manwiller
- Visual Effects
- Cinesite
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- John D. Milinac
- Foreperson:
- Scott Blackwell
- Snow Effects
- Snow Business, Inc
- Co-ordinator:
- Peter Haran
- Poe Animal Replica
- Alec Gillis
- Tom Woodruff Jr
- Graphic Designers
- Susan Burig
- Eva Kamienska-Carter
- Additional Film Editor
- Craig Kitson
- Art Director
- Don Woodruff
- Set Decorator
- Jay R. Hart
- Scenic Artists
- Todd Hatfield
- Eileen Garrigan
- Mark Barill
- Vincent Borrelli
- Gregg Puchalski
- Blake Rich
- Costume Designer
- Beatrix Aruna Pasztor
- Costume Supervisor
- Kendall Errair
- Make-up
- Supervisor:
- Michal Bigger
- Artist:
- Kymbra Callaghan
- Hair
- Supervisor:
- Aaron F. Quarles
- Stylist:
- Sacha P. Quarles
- Titles/Opticals
- Pacific Title
- Synth Programming
- Kenneth Burgomaster
- Music Conductor/
Orchestrations - Pete Anthony
- Additional Orchestrations
- Christopher Young
- Bruce Babcock
- Music Supervisor
- Carol Fenelon
- Score Co-ordinators
- Konstantinos Christides
- Jasper Randall
- Sujin Nam
- Supervising Music Editor
- Thomas Milano
- Music Editor
- Tanya Noel Hill
- Music Recordist/Mixer
- Robert Fernandez
- Music Recordist
- Paul Wertheimer
- Soundtrack
- "No Regrets"; "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" - Johnny Hodges; "Shoot Your Shot" - Jr. Walker & the All Stars; "Need Your Love So Bad" - Little Willie John; "Slip Away" - Clarence Carter; "A Child's Claim to Fame" - Buffalo Springfield; "Buckets of Rain", "Not Dark Yet", "Shooting Star", "Things Have Changed" - Bob Dylan; "Reason to Believe"; "Watching the Wheels" - John Lennon; "Youth" from "The Picture of Dorian Gray"; "Bicycle Montage" from "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles"; "Theme from 'Route 66'" - Nelson Riddle; "Good Morning" from "Babes in Arms"- Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney; "Old Man" - Neil Young; "Waiting for the Miracle" - Leonard Cohen; "Philosophers Stone" - Van Morrison; "Glad to Be Unhappy" - Lee Wiley
- Production Sound Mixer
- Kirk Francis
- Recordist
- Mark Narramore
- Re-recording Mixers
- Christopher Jenkins
- Ron Bartlett
- Mark Smith
- Supervising Sound Editors
- Dennis Drummond
- David Giammarco
- Dialogue Editors
- Kim Drummond
- Mark Yardas
- ADR
- Voices:
- Terri Douglas
- Caitlin McKenna
- Claudette Wells
- June Christopher
- Barbara Goodson
- Raechel H. Donahue
- Archie Hahn
- Phil Proctor
- Nicholas Guest
- Don Fullilove
- Roger Aaron Brown
- Fred Tatasciore
- Nathan Carlson
- Mixer:
- Greg Steele
- Supervising Editor:
- Renée Tondelli
- Editor:
- George Anderson Foley
- Artists:
- Robin Harlan
- Sarah Monat
- Mixer:
- Randy K. Singer
- Supervising Editor:
- Jonathan Klein
- Editor:
- Dan Yale
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Jeff Imada
- Animal Trainers
- Mark Forbes
- Stacy M. Basil
- Film Extracts
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
- Babes in Arms (1939)
- Cast
- Michael Douglas
- Grady Tripp
- Tobey Maguire
- James Leer
- Frances McDormand
- Sara Gaskell
- Robert Downey Jr
- Terry Crabtree
- Katie Holmes
- Hannah Green
- Rip Torn
- Q
- Richard Knox
- Vernon Hardapple
- Jane Adams
- Oola
- Michael Cavadias
- Miss Sloviak/Tony
- Richard Thomas
- Walter Gaskell
- Alan Tudyk
- Traxler
- Philip Bosco
- Emily's father
- George Grizzard
- Fred Leer
- Kelly Bishop
- Amanda Leer
- Bill Velin
- Officer Pupcik
- Charis Michelsen
- Carrie
- Yusuf Gatewood
- Howard
- June Hildreth
- Emily's mother
- Elisabeth Granli
- Emily, photo
- Richard Hidlebird
- Hi-Hat bouncer
- Screamer
- Poe
- Bingo O'Malley
- Patricia Cray
- Marita Golden
- Victor Quinaz
- James Ellroy
- Lenora Nemetz
- Tracey D. Turner
- James Kisicki
- Wordfest party guests
- Rob McElhenney
- Anika Bobb
- Katherine Sweeney
- students
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 10,027 feet
- 111 minutes 25 seconds
- Dolby/DTS
- In Colour
- Prints by
- Deluxe
- 2.35:1 [Super 35]