Despite the predictability of its plot and its similarity to Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester has an honest, solid feel to it and good rapport between Connery and Brown.
Despite the predictability of its plot and its similarity to Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester has an honest, solid feel to it and good rapport between Connery and Brown.
audience
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 78,340
In the spirit of his Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting, Gus Van Sant directs this tale of the unlikely bond that develops between an aging, reclusive novelist named Forrester (Sean Connery) -- who hasn't written anything since winning a Pulitzer Prize decades earlier -- and Jamal (Rob Brown), a 16-year-old with a hidden desire to be a writer. When Jamal is cited for his athleticism in basketball by an elite Manhattan prep school, he is forced to adapt to an environment far from his South Bronx
upbringing, and a small mishap leads him to the eccentric, uneasy Forrester. After their initial apprehension of each other, they begin to fuel each other's fire for writing, and become unlikely friends despite their ages and backgrounds. Forrester's devotion to Jamal becomes enhanced when he must defend allegations of plagiarism enforced by Professor Crawford (F. Murray Abraham), jeopardizing Jamal's future. The film also features Anna Paquin, Busta Rhymes, and Zane Copeland, Jr.. ~ Jason Clark, Rovi
If director Gus Van Sant had always been a hack it wouldn't matter so much, but personally I find this form of licking the audience's cheeks like an obsequious puppy deeply offensive.
A rewarding exploration of the knotty and often contentious relationship between teacher and protege. Its chief pleasure is the master class in the art of acting delivered by Sean Connery.
Lost in "Forrester's" dismissal is appreciation for its relatively piss-and-vinegar approach to the act of creating fiction. Jazzy, classicist and a bit meta, the film's unexpectedly urbane quirks resemble Jonathan Demme films at their mainstream best.
Finding Forrester is almost worth seeing for Connery and Brown, but it's a lot to ask for people to sit through 136 minutes when only about a third of it is any good.
Finding Forrester is not the fastest-paced film in the world, nor the most stirring. It is however the most complete portrait of what it means to be a writer that I've seen in a long time.
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