Wonder Boys

Written by: Steve Kloves Starring: Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey, Jr., Katie Holmes, Frances McDormand, Richard Thomas

Curtis Hanson (“LA Confidential”) trades in the hot sun of Southern California for Pittsburgh’s icy winter with this wry, rueful picture. Nominally a character study of aging, one-time literary star Grady Tripp (Douglas), the movie is really about the creative process, about being a writer, or trying to be one. It is about literary ambition, and the struggle to find out what is important to you. Given these themes, it is amazing that the picture was made at all. Tripp, who wrote a successful book seven years ago, is living on his laurels, but the sense is growing that he is washed up.

Meanwhile, he marks time as a professor, struggles with a 2000-plus page book he cannot stop writing, rents a room to the seductive Hannah (Holmes), and conducts an affair with University Chancellor Sara Gaskell (McDormand), who is married to his department chairman (Thomas). Into Tripp’s unfocused life comes the dark and depressed student James Leer (well played by Maguire, in what seems to be the flip side of the sunny character he played in “The Cider House Rules.”) What Tripp teaches Leer, and, in the process, himself, is really the focus of the picture. Curtis does a good job, capturing the Pittsburgh winter and the university life equally well, and the script, by Steve Kloves (“The Fabulous Baker Boys”) is smart and funny.

But the key to the picture is Douglas, and he rises to the occasion. To be honest, I have never been a fan of his. I have never found him particularly convincing as an actor; he always seemed to be trying too hard to be slick and heartless, when in fact all along he has been what “Wonder Boys” shows him to be: introspective and thoughtful. He slips on the role of Grady Tripp like an old corduroy jacket, and it’s a good fit. In any other Michael Douglas movie, he would have slept with Katie Holmes, but here he gently dissuades her. He acts his age, but with grace and a wry acceptance. He is not afraid to look ridiculous, stumbling around in an old pink bathrobe, but he grounds the character in reality. He inflects his lines perfectly, reflecting a world-weariness still brightened by an appreciation for the good that life can bring. I even liked his voiceover narration, which is usually a device that signals trouble ahead. As good as Douglas is, I would be remiss if I did not mention Robert Downey, Jr., who nearly steals the picture as Tripp’s flamboyantly pansexual editor, Terry Crabtree. I don’t know what his current legal status is, but the guy can act. All of the characters in “Wonder Boys” are sharply drawn, in fact, but it's Douglas who takes what is really a rather small picture and lends it its memorable charm. (2/29/2000)