WONDER BOYS by Curtis Hanson
by Andre Soares
Wonder Boys (2000) 
Director: Curtis Hanson. Screenplay: Steven Kloves, from Michael Chabon’s novel. Cast: Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey, Jr., Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Richard Thomas
SCREWBALL REDUX
A brilliant young writer who happens to be a pathological liar (probably not a coincidence) and who is also obsessed with celebrity suicides. A flamboyant bisexual literary editor who can’t tell the difference between a ten-feet-tall transvestite and a woman. A pothead English professor with so little sense of ethics that he has the gall to be upset when his wife leaves him, even though he has been having an affair with his boss’ wife. Add to that mix a pompous successful writer, an irascible "car robber" and his ditzy girlfriend, a ferocious blind dog, and Marilyn Monroe’s worn-out jacket, and we have the recipe for a delightful — and potentially enlightening — screwball comedy. (See synopsis.) The trouble is that Gregory La Cava’s and Leo McCarey’s touch is nowhere to be found in Wonder Boys.
Director Curtis Hanson, who tried his hand at film noir with the so-so L.A. Confidential, tackles another old Hollywood genre, the screwball comedy, in this adaptation of Michael Chabon’s irreverent novel. The ingredients are all there, but missing is the spirit of those wacky Hollywood comedies.
Everyone tries extremely hard to be quirky and funny in Wonder Boys — and it shows. In fact, we can almost see Hanson’s heavy hand in every purportedly funny sequence and his even heavier fist in the dramatic moments. Sure, they also tried extremely hard back in the 1930s, but the effort put into My Man Godfrey and Bringing Up Baby was invisible to the audience. That is why those comedies worked — and still do — and that is why Wonder Boys doesn’t quite click despite its stellar cast and first-rate production values.
Either Cary Grant or William Powell could have turned Michael Douglas’s basically unsympathetic potheaded part into a hilarious romp, but Douglas, of course, is neither Cary Grant or William Powell. Worse yet, he gets little help from most cast members, with the exception of Michael Cavadias’s Miss Antonia Sloviak, a transvestite whose moment of truth — when Miss Antonia removes her wig, you know the party is over — is the highlight of the film. (Miss Antonia also earned my sympathy for being the film’s only character who mourns the blind dog’s death.)
Ultimately, Wonder Boys leaves one yearning for what it might have been: A brilliant, funny, poignant screwball comedy. How about a (really funny) remake, ten years from now?
At a Pittsburgh university, a student and pathological liar, James Leer, (Tobey Maguire) forms an unlikely friendship with his haggard, pill-popping fiftyish English teacher, Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas), and with Tripp’s visiting New York editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey, Jr.).
The pothead Tripp, who has been suffering from writer’s block for seven years, has just been abandoned by his wife. As if life weren’t complicated enough, the professor discovers that his lover, Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand), who also happens to be the wife of his boss, Walter (Richard Thomas), is expecting his child. Could things get any worse? Well, yes.
One night, the somewhat demented James kills Walter’s beloved blind dog and steals his most precious memento: a jacket worn by Marilyn Monroe. All hell breaks lose when Tripp’s car disappears along with Marilyn’s old jacket. While the chase after both car and jacket goes on, little romantic crushes come to the fore, and various characters get high, get drunk, and get laid.
But there’s no escape. Tripp must come to terms with both his jealousy of James’ writing talent and his own messy life.
Notes:
At one point in the film, Tobey Maguire’s character gives a lengthy list of celebrities who killed themselves. Originally, the list included actor Alan Ladd, who died after mixing alcohol and sedatives in January 1964. (In November 1962, there had been a near-fatal self-inflicted gun wound.) Some have claimed that Ladd’s death was indeed a suicide, but the issue has never been settled. Thus, following complaints from Ladd’s family, Paramount removed the actor’s name (via a quick cut) from Maguire’s list. (Note: Paramount also happens to be Ladd’s old studio.)
There seems to have been a minor change in the dialogue for the DVD version. When Tripp goes meet Crabtree at the airport, Crabtree tells Trip, "You’re stoned," instead of the original "You’re fucked up."
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