In this comedy, a middle-aged man juggles his problems with women, literature, and a career, while a younger man chases the artifact of his dreams. Pittsburgh college professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is currently single following his divorce from his third wife; after publishing an acclaimed first novel, Grady has been working on a follow-up, but he's been sidelined by a severe case of writer's block. Grady has more than his writing career to think about; his affair with one of the
(married) chancellors at the University of Pittsburgh (Frances McDormand), has resulted in her pregnancy, while Hannah (Katie Holmes), a student boarding at Grady's house, has developed a crush on him. While Grady is obsessed with his book, one of his students (Tobey Maguire) has an obsession of his own: finding a jacket once owned by Marilyn Monroe. Based on the novel by Michael Chabon, The Wonder Boys also features Robert Downey Jr., Rip Torn, and Richard Thomas. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Michael Douglas gives the best perfromance of his career (to be remembered at Oscar time) in this screwball comedy about a college professor who's pushed into maturity by forces beyond his control; a well-acted coming-of-age saga for adults.
Like a favorite novel, "Wonder Boys" gets more comfortably broken-in with each return, and Michael Douglas wears Grady Tripp's scruffiness as sharply as he does Gordon Gekko's natty clothes - addressing jealousy, panic and terror in creative complacency.
If Douglas and Hanson have aimed to make Grady as simultaneously weary and jazzed...as Bob Dylan's Oscar-winning theme song is, they have come enticingly close, with marvelous highs along the way (not just the narcotic kind), but they haven't fully got th
As Tripp, Michael Douglas, looking hugely disheveled, does his best work in years; playing a real character after so many pictures in which he's glided by on an air of silken yuppiness, he proves that he's still a true actor.
...smart, charming, and funny ... It's about finding the right inspiration and making the right choices. Hanson and Kloves, it's abundantly clear, made a lot of right choices.
Paramount's ... DVD offers a splendid transfer (2.35:1 anamorphic) with strong, crisp audio in Dolby Digital 5.0.... "The Songs of Wonder Boys" (like album liner notes by Hanson)...
Wonder Boys has a delightfully malicious beginning, an increasingly muddled second act and a conclusion of such moral uplift that it probably should not be shown to the characters themselves.
This performance shows Douglas aging gracefully and willingly, an accomplishment that only a couple of famous leading men have achieved in recent years.
It's perfectly fine. I don't really buy anybody's character though. Michael Douglas, a depressive writer? Tobey Maguire, a psychopath? Katie Holmes, a writing ingenue? No, no, and no.
"Wonder Boys" is just a lot of fun. It's not really saying anything in the way of college professors, writers or students, but it certainly gets all of their personalities correct. The movie is more about character and dialogue- this is an actors film. The cast works wonders with terrific work from Michael Douglas,
Robert Downey Jr, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes and Rip Torn. "Wonder Boys" is witty, smart, energetic and extremely well acted.
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