In 1997, Curtis Hanson turned James Ellroy’s gritty crime novel L.A. Confidential into a universally praised Oscar-winning movie. If it didn’t have the misfortune of going up against Titanic, it probably would’ve won Best Picture and Best Director.
So, when people wondered what would be Hanson’s follow-up, they might have been surprised he was going for something a little more simpler with Wonder Boys. After The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The River Wild, some filmmakers go for a story they know can be easier to make but more challenging. Alfred Hitchcock did the same thing with Psycho as his follow-up to North by Northwest. Not to give much away but the few action scenes in this movie are done for comedy.
Based on the novel of the same name by Michael Chabon, this is one of those movies you like or don’t like because of you get what the characters are going through or you find them a little irritable and pretentious. Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is a writing professor at an unnamed college in the Pittsburgh area. Years earlier, he had success with a novel titled The Arsonist’s Daughter. It won him the PEN Award and acclaim. Now, he’s packed on some pounds and lost another wife who has left him the morning when the movie begins.
Grady lives a Bohemian lifestyle in the world of college professors where he basically never really graduated from college. He smokes cannabis, even though that’s not a big deal now and he walks around his house in a pink robe that has seen better days. He rents a room in his house to a student, Hannah Green (Katie Holmes), who is infatuated with him and walks around his house with only a T-shirt and panties on. However, Grady doesn’t reciprocate the feelings.
Maybe it’s because he’s having an affair with the college chancellor Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand), who is married to English Department Dean Walter Gaskell (Richard Thomas), who is over Grady. Walter is a sheepish and somewhat gullible person who is obsessed with Marilyn Monroe so much he’s paid a lot of money to have the winter coat she wore when she married Joe DiMaggio. And Sara has told Grady that she’s pregnant and there’s no question of who’s the father.
Grady’s long-time editor Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.) has flown in for WordFest, an annual event the college has to honor writers, even though much of the movie focuses on events peripheral to it. Crabtree is like a college student who never really graduated as he brings a crossdresser Miss Antonia Sloviak (Michael Cavadis) along with him he met on the plane. Crabtree sets his eyes on a young student of Grady’s named James Leer (Tobey Maguire), who is an habitual liar and has a gloomy disposition.
James is obsessed with celebrities who committed suicide and rambles out alphabetically about a dozen who died and their manner. Grady feels James may be the most talented one in his class along with Hannah, but his stories are heavily criticized for their darkness and gloom. Things immediately go downhill when Grady attempts to cheer James up at a reception at the Gaskills’ household kicking off WordFest by showing him the famous Monroe coat.
And then Grady is attacked by Poe a mostly blind dog of the Gaskells. James saves Grady by killing the dog with a small caliber handgun he claims was a cap-gun his mom won in a penny arcade. From here the weekend goes outrageous as Grady, Crabtree and James have to deal with the smugness of Grady’s contemporary Quentin “Q” Morewood (Rip Torn). They also encounter a business owner who they call “Vernon Hardapple” (Richard Knox), who looks like a Temu-version of James Brown and has a pregnant wife, Oola (Jane Adams), who works at a bar they frequent.
The movie received rave reviews but poor marketing by Paramount Pictures led to a dismal return at the box office of just under $20 million from U.S. and Canadian theaters. In an attempt to draw up some Oscar buzz, Paramount re-released it later in 2000 with a different marketing strategy. The original theater poster had a chubby-faced Douglas which the Wall Street Journal commented he looked like Michael J. Pollard smiling at the camera. The re-release had stills from the movie featuring Douglas, Downey, Holmes and Maguire.
However, it didn’t make a lot of money on the re-release but it did get three Oscar nominations and one win for Bob Dylan for Best Original Song for “Things Have Changed.”
It’s one of those movies you probably won’t get if you don’t see the humor in the fact that all the characters are living in their own worlds where they think they’re more important than what they really are. Grady has been working on a follow-up that is over 2,600 pages single spaced on a typewriter that Crabtree believes could make his career better as it’s in a lull. Crabtree’s eccentric attitude is an act for his depressing life as an editor who can’t find better novels.
James, himself, makes up outrageous stories about his parents, where he lives and his past history. But in many ways, he lives an ordinary life. It’s possible Grady is trapped behaving the way he does because it’s to be expected from writers. Even “Q” in his few scenes comes off in a way that you can tell it’s all an act. During a speech at WordFest, he begins saying, “I…am a writer” as the audience slowly applauds and Grady shoots James a “Gimme a break” look.
It’s ironic that “Vernon Hardapple” who tells Grady the Ford Galaxy he’s driving was stolen from “Vernon” days earlier, seems to have it more together than Grady and Crabtree. He’s a business owner and he wants to start a family with Oola. That’s why Grady is torn between Sara and Hannah.
Sara is the grown-up Grady needs while Hannah is just another infatuated fan. Even James admires Grady to the point that he isn’t thinking in reality. And Grady is at the point in his life where he can’t keep blaming his actions on a mid-life crisis. Grady and Crabtree might make fun of “Vernon” who may be eccentric himself but he has more of his life together.
This is a different role for Douglas compared to his later roles in Solitary Man and The King of California, even though they all make an unofficial trilogy as Douglas plays irresponsible older men. Grady is more likeable than the characters in those other movies mainly because he doesn’t give in to his vices as much and realizes it’s time to finally grow up.
While Holmes and Maguire got bigger after this, their celebrity statuses have faltered in recent years. I think filmmakers realized Maguire couldn’t get past playing the same geeky college-aged person well into his 30s. I have to say I liked how they made a comment in Spider-Man: No Way Home he looked like a youth minister. At the time of filming, Downey’s future was still questionable. He’s now an Oscar winner like Frances McDormand, who’s won two since then.
I’m almost sure Wonder Boys isn’t the type of movie for the general masses. That’s why the studio dropped it in late February than another time. I actually like how Grady and Crabtree make up a fake life for “Vernon” just based on his appearance. I’ve often done the same thing while seeing people out in public.
Hanson would rebound with 8 Mile but sadly would retire in 2012 as he was suffering from frontotemporal dementia. I like L.A. Confidential and didn’t care much for 8 Mile, but I think Wonder Boys is his underrated masterpiece.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 