Wonder Boys (2000)

6.8	Rating (393 ratings)
7.3	IMDB rating

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Directed by

Curtis Hanson

Starring (View all)

Michael Douglas
Grady Tripp

Tobey Maguire
James Leer

Frances McDormand
Sara Gaskell

Robert Downey Jr.
Terry Crabtree

Katie Holmes
Hannah Green

Rip Torn
Q

Richard Knox
Vernon Hardapple

Jane Adams
Oola

Written by

Michael Chabon
(novel)

Steve Kloves
(screenplay)

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Wonder Boys Videos

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Reviews

A very good movie

9 years, 2 months ago at Sep 10 11:12

johanlefourbe

1 vote

Last year, I discovered that Curtis Hanson had retired because of Alzheimers. It sounds rather tragic that his career ended up this way. Hanson was actually quite a late bloomer as he had his biggest success with ‘L.A. Confidential’ rather late in his career. 3 years later, he came up with this follow-up which was barely noticed by the audience, even though it received some stellar reviews. Pe... read more

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Description: Wonder Boys is one of those movies in which more twists and turns disrupt the life of the hero in one weekend than would bother most of us our whole lives. Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is an aging one-novel wunderkind at a small Pittsburgh college who's laboring on his seven-years-in-the-making, 2000-plus page second opus with no end in sight. The morning of the college's literary lollapalooza, WordFest, Grady's wife leaves him; that evening, his mistress (Frances McDormand) announces she's pregnant (she's also the chancellor of the school, as well as the wife of Grady's boss). Grady's voracious editor (Robert Downey Wonder Boys is one of those movies in which more twists and turns disrupt the life of the hero in one weekend than would bother most of us our whole lives. Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is an aging one-novel wunderkind at a small Pittsburgh college who's laboring on his seven-years-in-the-making, 2000-plus page second opus with no end in sight. The morning of the college's literary lollapalooza, WordFest, Grady's wife leaves him; that evening, his mistress (Frances McDormand) announces she's pregnant (she's also the chancellor of the school, as well as the wife of Grady's boss). Grady's voracious editor (Robert Downey Jr.) is also in town, transvestite date in tow, determined to read the highly anticipated new book; there's also the nubile student (Katie Holmes), who seems more than willing to ease Grady's pain. And then there's James Leer (Tobey Maguire), the mordant and brilliant writing student who's the catalyst for Grady's lost weekend, which involves a soon-to-be-dead blind dog, a stolen car, and the jacket that Marilyn Monroe wore when she wed Joe DiMaggio.
Had enough flights of fancy? It's only the beginning, and in the hands of director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) and screenwriter Steve Kloves (The Fabulous Baker Boys), Wonder Boys will have you begging for more. Adroitly adapting Michael Chabon's novel and distilling it to its droll, melancholy essence, Kloves and Hanson have fashioned a briskly unsentimental and darkly funny tale; these characters may be down on their luck, but they sure don't feel sorry for themselves. Douglas, by turns dryly sarcastic and sincerely heartfelt, single-handedly makes up for years of alpha-male posturing as the passive pothead Tripp, and whoever thought of pairing him with the resilient McDormand is brilliant--they convey the complexities and history of their relationship in a single glance or movement. And under Hanson's guidance, the rest of the cast is truly exceptional, with Maguire in a breakthrough performance and Downey at his manic best. The ending of Wonder Boys may feel a little too pat, but after everything these characters have been through, a happy ending seems a just reward. --Mark Englehart

... (more)

Release date: 25 February 2000
UPC: 097363326144

Tags: Drama (14), Comedy (12), 2000 (9), Drugs (7), College (6), Writing (6), University (4), Literature (4), Winter (4), Divorce (4), Extramarital Affair (4), Writers (3), Books (3), 2000s (3), Transvestite (3), Compulsive Liar (3), Publisher (3), Greenhouse (3), Dog Attack (3), Alcohol (2)

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