stills from Wonder Boys |
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[click photos for larger versions] |
The film is structured as a picaresque odyssey of self-discovery. Plot exists only in the loosest sense. The emphasis is upon the interactions between the characters over the course of the "Wordfest" weekend. The closest we get to a traditional plot is the conflict over the beat-up old Buick that Grady drives. When Grady, James Leer, and Terry Crabtree (Downey) go slumming, they encounter a man (who they christen "Vernon Hardapple" while fabricating his background story) who insists the car is his. However, this plot thread is handled with a delightful sense of the absurd. At one point, Vernon (played by Richard Knox of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band) confronts them on the street and won't let them drive by--until he smacks his tailbone on the car's hood and leaves a "butt print."
Based upon a book by Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys nails to perfection the atmosphere of academia--the self-important party patter, the glib responses by students in writing workshops, the anxieties that emerge when academia and non-academia intersect, etc. This is one of the most convincing portraits of academia ever captured on film. It's also the kind of movie that feels like literature because the emphasis is almost completely on the inner lives of the characters. In today's world of "serious" literature, anything remotely resembling plot is frowned upon. So Wonder Boys builds its impetus almost entirely from its quirky characters. The results are certainly compelling but there are some things that literature does well that movies struggle to achieve: literature is great at examining the minds of its characters. Novels can weave back and forth through time, helping us to understand the motivations of their characters. But film is confined to exteriors and therefore the inner lives of the characters can only be revealed through scenes. Because Wonder Boys is confined to exteriors, it never gets far enough into Grady's mind to help us understand his anxieties beyond a generic sense of his fears and self-doubts about living up to his "wonder boy" status. As a result, Wonder Boys is great literature that doesn't completely transfer to celluloid. However, as directed Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), Wonder Boys is nothing less than absorbing and compelling. While Hanson clearly places the emphasis upon the characterizations, he also uses the camera expertly. Working with cinematographer Dante Spinotti (who also lensed L.A. Confidential), Hanson creates dazzling images--snowflakes reflecting light during a nighttime conversation, umbrellas on a cold winter day, Grady teetering at the top of a stairwell while suffering a blackout, etc. If there was any doubt about Hanson's status as a major filmmaker after his success with L.A. Confidential that doubt is erased in Wonder Boys.