“I am a writer” declares Q. (Rip Torn) to applause from the college crowd in an unctuous speech at one pivotal point in WONDER BOYS, my pick for favorite film of 2000. The ambitions of aspiring writers mixed with the extreme self loathing and self-imposed despair that I’ve come to know all too well, boil to the surface in this adaptation of Michael Chabon’s 1995 novel. That this pretentious statement, coming from the prolific and respected antagonist of our supposed creative writing professor hero, prompts giggles echoing in the auditorium for all to hear from a brilliant but disturbed aspiring student writer, is a window into the heart of Hansen’s wonderful yet criminally overlooked film.“A worried man with a worried mind” goes Bob Dylan’s description of said hero Grady Tripp in the song “Things Have Changed” that serenades the opening credits. Tripp, as played by a scruffy pudgy Michael Douglas, is a jaded pot-smoking curmudgeon who has never finished a follow-up to his best selling novel “The Arsonist’s Daughter” from 7 seven years previous. We meet him as he toils in a stoned state over his class at a Pittsburgh college certainly modeled after Carnegie Melon (of course, because it was shot mostly there). His class includes Tobey Maguire as James Leer who Tripp describes in his voice-over narration as a “junior lit major and sole inhabitant of his own gloomy gulag”, and a pre Cruise scientology Stepford wife Katie Holmes as Hannah Green: “a talented writer who rented a room in my house…I knew her to be insightful, kind, and compulsively clad in red cowboy boots.”
Tripp tells us he’s distracted the morning of the first scene, maybe because his wife had just left him but “maybe not, wives have left me before.” Tense but somehow warming touches like that speak volumes of Tripp as introduces to us, step by step to his world. He smokes a joint on the way to the airport to pick up Robert Downey Jr. as his sexually ambiguous editor anxious to get his hands on Tripp’s next book. Downey Jr. is accompanied by an obvious transvestite - Miss Antonia Sloviak (Michael Cavadias), yet the dazed Downey Jr. considers Tripp “stoned” when he calls him on it. They arrive at the home of Tripp’s boss, the chairman of the English department (Richard Thomas – John Boy from The Waltons!) and his wife, the university chancellor (Francis McDormand) who just happens to be having an affair with Tripp and is carrying his baby.
All these errant strands collide at a literary festival the college is having that weekend called Wordfest. Tripp takes Leer under his wing, providing pot and begrudging advice while Leer reciprocates with many tall tales about his upbringing and current living situation. Tripp takes the liberty of showing off a prized possession to Leer of his boss’s collection – a coat worn by Marilyn Monroe on her wedding day to Joe DiMaggio. Unfortunately Thomas’s blind dog catches them in the act and Leer shoots the offending animal with a tiny trinket of a gun. Leer adds to the mess by stealing the valuable piece of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia and not telling Tripp where he lives because he wants to tag along toking the whole while.
It becomes a sort of “into the night” movie from there with a run-in with an irate bar patron (Richard Knox) who Grady jokingly assigns an amusing back story to: “President for the James Brown hair club for men.” Downey Jr.’s Crabtree joins in: “His name is Curtis Hardapple.” “No not Curtis” Tripp suggests. “Okay then, Vernon Hardapple”, they agree. “Vernon” however is no cast off caricature as it appears Tripp has unknowingly ‘borrowed’ his car – a 1966 maroon Ford Galaxie 500. Knox and Pregnant fiancée (Jane Adams - Todd Solondz’s HAPPINESS, Niles' mid series wife on Frasier) become entangled in the antics of the title namesakes but it concludes without regret on anybody’s side: “Man, that musta been one nutty book!” the now named Vernon exclaims.
“So there it was. Somewhere in the night a Manhattan book editor was prowling the streets of Pittsburgh, best selling author at his side…dead dog in his trunk.” Tripp again punctuates the action with descriptive flair; happily not the same kind of detail that drags down his prospective book according to Holmes’ Hannah. She offers this of his overlong opus: “Grady, you know how in class you’re always telling us writers make choices? And even though your book is really beautiful, I mean amazingly beautiful…it’s…at times it’s uh, very detailed. You know with the genealogies of everyone’s horses and the dental records and so on. And I could be wrong but it sort of reads in places like…you didn’t really make any choices.”
That’s the crux of this cinematic biscuit; our protagonist is forced to actually make choices after years of gliding through academia riding on the coat tails of a one time success. Grady Tripp is not so much caught at a crossroads as he is jolted out of a rut and starts to clearly see his options for the first time in ages. A “into the night” farce morphs convincingly into “gets their groove back” narrative and for once in an era of pure formula, it feels natural as it goes down sans cynicism.
Despite raves from many critics, WONDER BOYS flopped not just once but twice. After much acclaim but paltry box office the film was outfitted with a new ad campaign – mostly a new poster that emphasized the ace ensemble cast replacing the earlier design that had a grandmotherly (or worse, trying to resemble Robin Williams as director Hanson himself said) close-up of Douglas that did nothing to lure movie goers into the theaters. The only theory I have for its 2 time failure is the hatred of Michael Douglas that appeared to be brewing at the time. Despite his popularity in the 80’s (which included an Oscar for WALL STREET and the crowd pleasing films with Kathleen Turner), his 90’s marriage to Catherine Zeta Jones branded him as a superficial cradle robbing figurehead; less a relatable everyman than a bland actor who paved the way for the likes of Bill Pulliman and Bill Paxton. That’s an inaccurate read of Douglas who is capable of superlative chops – witness his performance in David Fincher’s THE GAME. For me, nobody else is imaginable for the role of Grady Tripp, Douglas is sheepish yet affectingly honest at the same time in every scene. When he calls Thomas in the middle of the night to finally confess his love for McDormand, it’s so awkwardly real that I felt like I was inappropriately eavesdropping.
In another fine film from 2000, HIGH FIDELITY, Jack Black chides heartbroken and bitter record store owner John Cusack for his in-store playing of what Black calls “old sad bastard music.” Old sad bastard music is what the WONDER BOYS soundtrack completely consists of. Along with the before mentioned Oscar winning Dylan track that bookends the film (as well as 3 other vintage Dylan songs) there are well worn yet still strong Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, John Lennon and Van Morrison cuts. These music cues inform Grady and his yearning co-horts into concise context but never romanticize them. It’s very telling that Dylan’s made to order song submission “Things have Changed” was the only Academy Award win for this film.
In the end I believe this film resonates with me so because it is first and foremost “a writer’s movie.” From William Holden’s self serving SUNSET BOULEVARD deadbeat screenwriter to Charlie Kaufman’s ADAPTATION mind-fuck, writers have held a vaunted place in the world of movies. The premise of the washed up writer who is struggling to produce more worthy work after years of inactivity is one that has gone entertainingly through the motions in such incarnations as Dennis Quaid’s poisoned professor in D.O.A. (whose motto was “publish or perish”) and more recently in the eloquent but stifled Frank Langella in STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING. It also most be noted that WONDER BOYS isn’t the only film from its millennial era to feature the only copy of a manuscript tossed into a body of water to the chagrin of its author (the other being Woody Allen’s CELEBRITY).
In the background, early in the film, at the Wordfest eve party at Thomas’s and McDormand’s opulent home, this bit of conversation can be heard:
“How did you feel about the adaptation?”
“I thought it was more literary than cinematic.”
An apt criticism of the film at hand, sure, but a 9 years later WONDER BOYS, needs another glance from the folks that so glibly dismissed it. It has a knowing grasp of its own cleverness that never becomes cloying and a confidence about how to wear its characters weaknesses that all comes off as charming as can be now. Also it’s a chance to see Downey Jr. and Maguire in bed together almost a decade before TROPIC THUNDER but I digress. In an ending that recalls STAND BY ME (another writer’s movie if you really get down to it) Tripp polishes off a new book that is, in essence, the movie we’ve just been watching. Unlike Richard Dreyfuss before him who appeared to power down without making sure his work was secure (as Mad Magazine pointed out in their hilarious satire of Reiner’s revered film) , Douglas thankfully hits “save.” It’s a nice almost-nothing-but-signifying-everything note to end on. Gets me every time.
Wonder Boy's Trailer
1 baring their soul:
This is a great film and one that I revisit so often. Your numerous quotes from the film certainly underlines how memorable so much of the dialogue from this is, especially pretty much anything out of Robert Downey Jr.'s mouth.
There are countless memorable scenes in this film, the first that comes to mind is Q's pretentious speech that you quote at the beginning of the review and how it's interrupted by Tobey Maguire's high-pitched laugh in a quiet auditorium. That bit gets me every time.
But there are also fantastic moments of quiet contemplation, like when Michael Douglas sits on the front porch of his house after Downey has thrown a house party without his permission. Great film.
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