Review of Wonder Boys (2000) by Ruben F — 15 Aug 2009

Good comedy with elements of drama and a cast full of stars.

We follow an English professor Grady Tripp (fantastic Douglas, and by the way the surname seems fitting) that reaches a mid-life crisis. Things are about to get worse as his wife leaves him, his University's chancellor with whom he's been having an affair is pregnant with his child, one of his young students Hannah (Katie Holmes) has a crush on him, while the other, James (Tobey Maguire), has suicidal thoughts. And if that wasn't enough, Grady's editor Terry (Downey Jr.) is coming to see the manuscript of the follow up to the hit book Grady wrote except after 7 years of working on it and despite it passing 2600 pages the professor still can't finish it...

As I've mentioned the cast is fantastic, with Michael Douglas giving an outstanding performance. The characters are very lively, we can almost feel for their problems.

The story is very good as well, interesting plot and down to earth problems of the characters are convincing. There's a lot of dark humour going on to keep us smiling through the movie even though the truths Grady faces about himself aren't really a laughing matter.

Anyway the movie is good, really good but I feel you need to pass a certain age to appreciate it. This movie's fantastic matching song by Bob Dylan "Thing's have changed" received an Oscar award (love it myself).