Wonder Boys is a film that desperately needs to let go. It takes place over oneweekend where anything that can go wrong does go wrong, but the whole film feels like it isconstantly holding back, restraining itself from going along with its own inherently absurdsubject matter, as if it were too dignified to admit its own wackiness. The result is asomewhat static, randomly funny movie that leaves little impact. Its stubborn insistence onconstantly reminding us that it is about something important renders most of its moreoutrageous humor impotent.

This seems particularly strange considering that it was directed by Curtis Hanson, whosecritically adored L.A. Confidential (1997) was such an astounding successprimarily because he allowed the film to run freely on its own rampant, seedy course throughthe darkest avenues of Los Angeles in the 1950s. Wonder Boys might have been abetter movie if he had given it that kind of freedom.

Michael Douglas stars as Grady Tripp, a middle-age, heavy pot-smoking college Englishprofessor whose novel, The Anarchist's Daughter was a critical success sevenyears ago, and he hasn't produced anything since. He teaches writing workshop classes at aPittsburgh university during the day, and in his free time he works on his upcoming project,which has already passed 2,600 pages. Having already achieved incredible success, Gradyis caught in a rut of not being able to follow that success--he is in danger of being a "one-hitwonder," and he knows it.

When the film opens, Grady's third wife has just left him, his nosy New York editor, TerryCrabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), is in town, and he has just been told by Sara Gaskell(Frances McDormand), the married woman with whom he is having an affair, that she ispregnant. Of course, things are even more complicated because Sara is not only chancellor ofthe university, but she is married to the dean of the English department, Grady's boss.Grady and Sara's relationship is complex and at the point where they must make a decisionabout how much further they want to take it.

Grady, unfortunately, is constantly having to take care of business, whether that be trying totrack down his soon-to-be-ex-wife, driving home the transvestite Crabtree picked up at theairport, or deciding what to do with the Haskells' dog, who was shot by one of his studentsat a cocktail party. The dog-killer is James Lear (Tobey Maguire), an aspiring young writerwith a penchant for lying and a depressed demeanor that constantly suggests suicide. Muchof the film is about the relationship between Grady and James, and how Grady helps Jamessee another side of life (which amounts to James spending most of the film smoking Grady'splentiful supply of marijuana).

As that brief plot synopsis makes clear, there is a lot going on in Wonder Boys.But, despite the hectic running around, police involvement, overlapping problems, andconstant crises, the film never picks up any pace. Instead, it slowly moves along its course,with only the occasional funny moment of dialogue to give it any spice.

Grady remains an interesting character throughout the film, and Michael Douglas does a nicejob of maintaining a sense of balance, even in the most dire of circumstances. Of course, thatmay be part of the film's problem. It seems like a foregone conclusion that Grady willeventually lose it at some point, after seeing not one but two relationships with women goingdown the drain, getting bit in the ankle, having to drive around with a dead dog in his trunk,having his house trashed by a party he didn't throw, dealing with James' stealing a pricelessjacket worn by Marilyn Monroe from the Haskells' house, misleading the police, having hiscar stolen, and being trapped writing a 2,600-page manuscript that is obviously goingnowhere.

There is a point near the end of the film where something very bad happens to the book hehas been working on for seven years (being an old-fashioned writer, he uses a typewriteronly, and one of the major lessons learned in "Wonder Boys" is to use a word processor so youcan save your work), and you would think that this would be the breaking point. This iswhere Grady has to lose it...and he doesn't. This isn't so much a testament to Grady'sstrength as a character, but rather another illustration of what appears to be the film'sabsolute refusal to give in to raw emotion. We need some kind of explosive catharsis here,but the film doesn't deliver.

Because of this, the relationship between Grady and James never quite comes together, andscenes of absolute hilarity are reduced to being merely amusing. It's a testament to themovie's tightness that even Robert Downey Jr. is unable to make much of an impression asthe flamboyant, yet sad Crabtree. It's a role he should have been able to sink his teeth into,but nothing much ever comes of it. Bearing all this in mind, it should come as no surprisethat the film ends in the classical Hollywood fashion, with all the lose ends tied up and all thenecessary lessons learned--the most important, of course, being to save your work on disk.

©2000, 2001 James Kendrick