Wonder Boys (2000)
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 124
Fresh: 101 | Rotten: 23
Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire do wonders in this clever dark comedy.
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 5
Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire do wonders in this clever dark comedy.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 39,115
My Rating
Movie Info
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
Cast
-
Michael Douglas
Grady Tripp -
Tobey Maguire
James Leer -
Frances McDormand
Sara Gaskell -
Robert Downey Jr.
Terry Crabtree -
Katie Holmes
Hannah Green -
Richard Thomas
Walter Gaskell -
Rip Torn
Q -
Philip Bosco
Hank Winters -
Jane Adams (II)
Oola -
Richard Knox
Vernon Hardapple -
Michael Cavadias
Antonia Sloviak -
Alan Tudyk
Sam Traxler
ADVERTISEMENT
All Critics (129) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (104) | Rotten (24) | DVD (25)
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.
Wonder Boys digresses so entertainingly, you forget how quickly Grady got into the mess he's in, and can't imagine where we might be headed.
Top CriticGet going, you laggards.
World-weary has never been funnier or more fascinating than in Kloves' hands.
It's an often-wondrous comedy, just as rich and surprising as L.A. Confidential but considerably less dark.
I don't think I've ever seen another American comedy that mixed rue and slapstick and sentiment in quite this way.
This grand mess of a movie has many pleasures.
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.
One of those films where the term 'character study' is used to excuse the fact that there's nothing of real interest in the story.
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
Writer Steven Kloves and director Curtis Hanson turn Michael Chabon's novel into a quirky goofball pleasure.
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)...
Don't let the lame marketing for this film turn you off, this film is surprisingly enjoyable.
I've never quite seen a movie like Wonder Boys. It is sometimes self-deprecating, often nostalgic and optimistic, but always slightly mysterious.
Veterans and relative newcomers populate the talented cast, led by Douglas in one of his best-rendered performances to date.
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.
There's a story there, but it's probably not very interesting.
Audience Reviews for Wonder Boys
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
-
- Grady Tripp: He said things that led me to believe this is his car.
- Terry Crabtree: What things?
- Grady Tripp: "That's my car, motherfucker."
Discussion Forum
There are no discussion threads for Wonder Boys yet.
Latest News on Wonder Boys
June 20, 2011:
Michael Chabon Is Magic Kingdom BoundThe Pulitzer-winning author makes a deal with Disney to write the script for Jon Favreau's upcoming...
April 20, 2006:
Critical Consensus: A Weak "Sentinel," So-So "Dreamz" Are Made Of This, "Silent Hill" Not ScreenedThis week at the movies we've got a Secret Service agent on a mission ("The Sentinel"), an...
What's Hot On RT
Movies Directed by Tyler Perry
Blockbuster news and reviews
Ellen Page in an intriguing new thriller
A gallery of classic books on film
Featured on RT
- Total Recall: Movies Directed by Tyler Perry 49
- Parental Guidance: The Great Gatsby, Jack Reacher, and Safe Haven 6
- Video Interview: Aftershock Producer Eli Roth 3
- Ray Harryhausen: 1920-2013 33
- Digital Multiplex: Cloud Atlas, Pulp Fiction and more 4
- RT on DVD and Blu-Ray: Jack Reacher, Mama, and Upstream Color 34
- Box Office Guru Wrapup: Iron Man 3 Soars Above the Rest 64
Top Headlines
-
Baz Luhrmann Wants DiCaprio for Hamlet
1
-
Bryan Singer Shooting X-Men: Days of Future Past in 3D and Simul-Cam
0
-
Avatar Sequels Shooting in 2014
3
-
Shane Black Confirmed for Doc Savage
0
-
Warner Bros. Plans New Dungeons & Dragons Movie
5
-
Adam Scott in Talks for Hot Tub Time Machine 2
0
-
Summit Already Thinking About Divergent Sequel
2
Fresh Links
Featured
10 Best Movie Trilogies
Pretty self-explanatory here; HitFix offers up their favorite trilogies of all time.
10 Jilted Movie Grooms
Feeling a little sappy? Here are 10 movie grooms who were left at the altar.
Weirdest Movie Siblings
From Twins to The Royal Tenenbaums, Moviefone explores cinema's oddest siblings.
50 Youth-Gone-Wild Movies
TimeOut lists the best movies about youth and rebellion.
30 Greatest Rock & Roll Movie Moments
Rolling Stone boldly proclaims the rockin'-est moments in cinema.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter!
Spice up your feed with hourly Tomatometer updates!
Foreign Titles
- Die WonderBoys (DE)
