Wonder Boys
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{{Infobox_Film
|name = Wonder Boys
|image = Wonder Boys film.jpg
|caption = Wonder Boys film poster
|director = Curtis Hanson
|producer = Curtis Hanson
Scott Rudin
|writer = Michael Chabon (novel)
Steven Kloves (screenplay)
|starring = Michael Douglas
Tobey Maguire
Frances McDormand
Robert Downey, Jr.
Katie Holmes
Rip Torn
|movie_music=
|distributor= Paramount Pictures
|released= February 22, 2000
|runtime = 111 min.
|language = English
|imdb_id = 0185014
|music =
|awards =
|budget = $35,000,000 (est.)
|}}
Wonder Boys is a critically acclaimed motion picture starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes and Robert Downey Jr. Roger Ebert described it as "the most accurate movie about campus life that I can remember."
Directed by Curtis Hanson, Wonder Boys was filmed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, including locations at Carnegie Mellon University and Chatham College. Other Pennsylvania locations included Beaver, Rochester and Rostraver Township. Released February 22, 2000, the film reunited Holmes and Maguire, who had appeared together three years earlier in The Ice Storm. After Wonder Boys failed at the box office, there was a second attempt to find an audience with a new marketing campaign and a November 8, 2000, re-release, which was also a financial disappointment.
Wonder Boys is based on the 1995 second novel by California author Michael Chabon and grew from his concerns with completing an unrealized novel, Fountain City, about the construction of a perfect baseball park in Florida. He decided to write a story about, in part, an author who couldn't finish his own work.
Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is a novelist who teaches creative writing at an unnamed Pennsylvania university. He is having an affair with university chancellor Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand), who is married to the chairman of the English department. Tripp's own wife (not his first) has left him, and he has failed to repeat the success of his first novel, published years earlier. He continues to labor on a second novel, but the manuscript gets longer the more he attempts to finish it, and spends his free time smoking marijuana.
His students include James Leer (Tobey Maguire) and Hannah Green (Katie Holmes). Hannah and James are friends and both very good writers. Hannah, who rents a room in Tripp's large house, is attracted to Tripp, but he does not reciprocate. James is enigmatic, quiet, dark and enjoys writing fiction more than he first lets on.
However, while at McDormand houseparty, James shoots the dog, after it attacks Grady and thus Grady has to hide the dead dog and agree to allow James to follow him around, initially fearing that he is suicidal or depressed, but then learns that much what James initially says is a ruse so that he can hang out with Grady.
Tripp's editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), flies into town under the pretense of attending the university's annual Word Fest, a literary event featuring authors and submissions for publication. In reality, Crabtree is there to see if Tripp has written anything worth publishing, as his both men's career is the line. Terry is with a transvestite, that he met on the flight, but the transvestite is soon dimissed after Terry sets eyes on James. Terry wants to publish what James writes, and the two spend a curious night together in one of Grady's spare rooms.
Hannah gives Grady some tough talk about his book, and usage of marijuana, which may or may not be related to his occasional blackouts. Meanwhile Sara (who tells him she is pregnant) wants do the best thing for everyone. In a bizare dispute of ownership of a car, Grady huge manuscript flows away, and Grady is sad at first, but then realizes that it gives him a change to start over, both in his life and by writing another book.
However, husband learns of the affair and of the dead dog, and wants revenge. Terry is able to calm the dean down by agreeing to publish his book about American baseball. Thus James graduates , goes off with Terry to be published.
The soundtrack features several songs by Bob Dylan, including one new composition, "Things Have Changed"; Hanson also created a music video for "Things Have Changed," filming new footage of Bob Dylan on the film's various locations and editing it with footage used in Wonder Boys as if Dylan were actually in the film. The song eventually won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for "best original song." Tim Hardin's "Reason To Believe" and Neil Young's "Old Man" and other vintage recordings are featured in the film.
Trivia
- Tobey Maguire's character James Leer is working on a long story. From the text shown on the first page, it is seen to be a copy of Michael Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. In the movie it is entitled The Love Parade.
- There are several deviations from the novel to the movie. One such example is that in the novel, when Grady and James take the trip to Laura's home, she and her whole family are there. Grady has a deep conversation with Laura's father out in his workshed before they return inside to a traditional Jewish holiday meal. In the movie, Grady and James only meet Laura's mother and father briefly before heading back to Pittsburgh.
- As James channel surfs at Emily's parents' house, he comes across the movie The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), the TV show Route 66, the TV show The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and the movie Babes in Arms (1939) with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney singing "Good Morning."
- Alan Ladd's name was removed from Tobey Maguire's speech about the actors who have committed suicide because Ladd's family objected.
- The combination to the safe in Walter Gaskell's house is 5641.