With a blockbuster cast, headed by Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand, and backed up by Robert Downey Jr. and Tobey Maguire, how could Wonder Boys go wrong? Answer: It doesn't.
A merry romp through academia, it's hard to believe that this film is from Curtis Hanson, the same director who gave us the dark and complicated LA. Confidential, which, if anything, was a hymn to malevolence.
Wonder Boys is more a hymn to man's fraility, with a bit of whimsey and humor thrown in. Michael Douglas plays a hapless university professor Grady Tripp, who is trying to finish his novel, while encountering writer's block.
In the meantime, however, Tripp gets the chancellor's wife, (Frances McDormand), pregnant, takes on a young protege James Leer, (Tobey Maguire), engages the affections of admiring student Hannah Green, (Katie Holmes), and, in general, just runs amok, (without finishing his 1100 plus page novel).
Robert Downey Jr. gets the last written word as Tripp's editor, and Leer's as well. The young man has just written a "successful" novel.
This isn't all, but it's enough to start with, and from the favorable reviews, that is quite enough.
The movie is rated R for language and drug content.
It starts Thursday at Market Square East.