Finding Forrester

Director: Gus Van Sant
Screenplay:Mike Rich
Stars: Sean Connery (William Forrester), Robert Brown (Jamal Wallace), F. MurrayAbraham (Prof. Henry Crawford), Anna Paquin (Claire Spence), Busta Rhymes (Terrell),April Grace (Ms. Joyce), Michael Pitt (Coleridge), Michael Nouri (Dr. Spence), RichardEaston (Matthews)
MPAA Rating:PG-13
Year of Release: 2000
Country: USA

Gus Van Sant's Finding Forrester opens in avant-garde fashion, with a quickglimpse of the clapboard snapping as someone off-screen yells "Action," and the openingcredits rolls over forlorn images of inner-city New York while a lone African-American youthraps acappella.

However, it turns out that Finding Forrester was not directed by the edgyindependent auteur behind Drugstore Cowboy (1989) and My Own PrivateIdaho (1991); rather, it was directed by the slick, mainstream filmmaker who madeGood Will Hunting (1997). As soon as the opening credits are over, the film settlesdown into an entertaining, if utterly predictable narrative flow about a gifted black teenagernamed Jamal (Robert Brown) who befriends a reclusive writer named William Forrester(Sean Connery).

Forrester is no ordinary writer, of course. Instead, he is a mythical legend in the hallowedhalls of literary greatness, a Scottish-American genius who penned The Great AmericanNovel, in this case a slim volume titled Avalon Landing. Then, for reasons unknown,he simply disappeared. Jamal discovers Forrester has been living in a dusty, book-filledapartment on the top floor of a tenement building deep in the Bronx for the last 30 years,never venturing outside or having any human contact except with a man who delivers hisgroceries and a fresh pair of socks each week.

When Jamal and Forrester first become friends, Jamal has no idea who Forrester is (he livesunder a pseudonym). All Jamal knows is he is a reclusive man who understands how to writeand can help Jamal with his own efforts. He becomes, in effect, Jamal's mentor in writing.Although Jamal is also a gifted athlete, with great prowess in basketball, his true interests areintellectual. An early shot of his bedroom shows a stack of books that are often reserved onlyfor students in graduate school, and his mother professes to a school counselor that hespends all his time writing in his notebooks and reading books, some of which she has neverheard.

Jamal eventually finds out who Forrester is after he is taken out of his public high school,where he has been making Cs in order not to stand out among his peers, and placed in anexpensive, private prep school in Manhattan. There, he becomes friend with a girl namedClaire Spence (Anna Paquin) and almost immediately makes enemies with a tenured literaryprofessor, Henry Crawford (F. Murray Abraham), who is so odious in his professionalpompousness and casual racism as to be utterly unredeemable.

But, that is mostly how Finding Forrester plays--in broad stokes that are not meantto challenge, but rather to reassure that, despite all its troubles, all will be right in the worldeventually. First-time screenwriter Mike Rich aims deep into feel-good territory, and VanSant brings it all home with the same light touch that made Good Will Hunting,which was also about a mentor relationship, such a success.

The film Finding Forrester most resembles, though, is Martin Brest's Scent of aWoman, in which Chris O'Donnell played Charlie Simms, a private-school outsider whowas left in charge of the aging, blind, retired Lt. Col. Frank Slade, played by Al Pacino.Although William Forrester is by no means suicidal like Slade, by locking himself in anapartment and refusing contact with the rest of the world for so many decades, he has alreadyenacted a kind of suicide that is both figurative and literal.

And, like Charlie, Jamal is an outsider in his school because of his socioeconomic status (notto mention the color of his skin) who finds himself in a predicament in which he is in troublewith the school officials, and his aging friend is the only person in a position to save him. Theclimax of Finding Forrester, which sets up a situation in which only Forrester canprove Jamal's innocence of an accusation of plagiarism, is completely contrived, yet alsosomehow gratifying. Much like Lt. Col. Slade's big speech at the end of Scent of aWoman that gets Charlie off the hook, so does Forrester's sudden emergence intopublic life.

Sean Connery, who also coproduced the film, has a magnificent turn as William Forrester.His performance is, at various turns, bitter, funny, and deeply affecting. He maintains justenough mystery to keep Forrester's character interesting throughout, but he is also openenough to make us realize that Forrester gains just as much, if not more, from his relationshipwith Jamal than Jamal gains from him. They become each other's saviors, and while hardlyoriginal, it is this dualism within their relationship that keeps it interesting.

However, the real find here is Robert Brown, a high school sophomore who answered anopening casting call and found himself in the lead role as Jamal. Brown is an untrained actorof great potential. He has a tough resilience and natural tenderness that feels utterlyunaffected. It is almost as if he isn't acting. He exudes Jamal's intelligence without makinghim a bookworm, and he is adept at portraying how Jamal's intellectual prowess can be asmuch a burden as it is a gift.

In the end, Finding Forrester is more than content to spin its good-natured story anddeal with sensitive topics in a way that threatens no one, thus reassuring its audience that,despite pain and prejudice in the world, not everything is what it seems and the good will winin the end. Young African-American males living in the ghetto can find a way out. Interraciallove can overcome the prejudice of rich white fathers. Basketball players can be voraciousreaders and deep thinkers who know the entire history of the BMW and can recite literatureby heart. Reclusive old men can be brought out into the light and given a second chance inlife. And cruel, pompous literary professors will always, always, be exposed andjustly punished through public humiliation.

©2001 James Kendrick



Overall Rating: (2.5)




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