B-Movies: Wonder Boys • Home For The Holidays

B-Movies & Couch Classics
Reviews of Movies Often Overlooked or Forgotten

by Arik Ben Treston

Wonder Boys
2000, R

It’s rare for a corporation (Paramount, in this case), to resurrect a product that didn’t make any money just for the sake of its quality, but that is what it has done with Wonder Boys. After a disappointing theatrical run in February, Paramount made the decision to stage a re-release towards the end of the year. While this is usually reserved for a few movies being re-released for Oscar contention, Wonder Boys has been given a bigger push a second time around. This included a strategic change in product packaging that reshaped the artwork from featuring only Michael Douglas on the poster to incorporating pictures of all its stars.

Among its wonderful and gelled cast are Francis McDormand, Toby Maguire, Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, and Robert Downey, Jr. Boys, based on Michael Chabon’s 1995 novel, is expertly crafted by director Curtis Hanson — following up his grand L.A. Confidential — and starring Douglas in his best performance in recent memory. Douglas is Grady Tripp, a shlumpy and frumbled English professor at a Pittsburgh area college who enjoys wearing his ex-wife’s robe and the occasional, and by occasional I mean often, joint.

Grady’s bestseller was years ago and he has been working on his follow-up for too long (as is the book). His editor, Terry Crabtree (Downey), pays a visit to his best client to check up on the progress of his opus. Crabtree needs the book soon and needs it to be a hit — his career is nearing an end if Grady’s dry spell continues. Hannah Green (Holmes) and James Leer (Maguire) are two of Grady’s brightest students. Leer is a strange loner who is far more complicated than he seems. Grady takes a liking to this odd character. Green platonically rents a room in Grady’s house and becomes an integral part of this next chapter in all their lives.

Aside from a blocked writer, a failed editor, a transvestite, a seriously moody kid, Vernon Hardapple (you’ll see), a dog and a tuba, there is the lovely wife of the dean (McDormand) who is having an affair with Grady.

Hanson concocts a wild mixture of slapstick, drama, and farce all kept simmering under the surface to keep the film on an even and subtle keel. This works well as it presents a frantic weekend in the lives of these people. Douglas puts his all into this role and lets every wrinkle, stubble, gray hair, and jowl hang up their on the screen for the world to see. That takes courage from a man who recently married one of the most beautiful (and 20-some years younger) actresses around, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Grady is played with the perfect embodiment of someone wearing their uncomfortable life on their sleeve.

Maguire continues with his trend of taking on quiet, spacey characters that make him more endearing with each film he does. His portrait of a confused and sad young man should earn him recognition come Oscar-time, (which is part of Paramount’s re-release hope and hype). Downey pulls off another perfect-note role as the partying and too-much-fun-having editor who is better on the inside than he is on the out. The rest of the cast complements each other’s performances on the money and create a unique ensemble.

With a soothing soundtrack that matches the cold and gloomy Pittsburgh winter, the film captures the more classic style of storytelling that will hopefully spawn a wave of like-minded films that incorporate basic human failures, foibles and follies, with a mix of hope and humor in a way that isn’t saccharine and isn’t sour but is just right. This film is just that.

Home For The Holidays
1995, PG-13

While Robert Downey Jr. is, by all accounts, a superb actor, there are few roles that show off his comedic and dramatic abilities in the same film. Wonder Boys and the Jodie Foster directed (and too under appreciated film), Home For The Holidays, are two such vehicles. Holly Hunter plays Claudia Larson, daughter of loopy Adele and Henry (Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning, respectively), mother of teen Kitt (Claire Danes), and sister of sharp and gay brother Tommy (Downey) and the repressed and living-near-home Joanne (Cynthia Stevenson).

Claudia, after just having been fired from her museum job, heads home for Thanksgiving. Tommy and his friend Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott-"The Practice") join the festivities alongside Joanne and husband, Walter (Steve Guttenberg), and their annoying kids. The table also includes the slightly very crazy Aunt Gladys (Geraldine Chaplin) with her Fruit-Loops necklace and gaseous emanations.

What makes this film work, aside from Foster’s assured direction, is the humanity that shines in a film that easily could have turned into a slapstick, one-dimensional characterization. Joanne is presented as an uptight hysteric who we later realize has very real grievances — and this process of revelation occurs with the other characters, as well. This simple attention to three-dimensional detail elevates this film above other similar titles and is one of the reasons it should have gotten a better rap.