Wonder Boys

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

This movie has a lot in common with its main character. Both are shambling and directionless, with a literary gloss and great deal of charm and intelligence. And both need all of that to be forgiven for their many failings.

Michael Douglas plays Grady Tripp, a college professor whose award- winning book was published seven years ago. He is under pressure from all sides. His third young, beautiful wife has just left him. His mistress Sara (Frances McDormand), who happens to be married to Tripp’s boss, is pregnant with Tripp’s child. His best student seems suicidal. Another student, who is also a tenant, is clearly interested in becoming young and beautiful wife number four. And his editor is pressing him for a new manuscript.

Tripp has a manuscript, now up to page 2612, but does not want to show it to anyone. Crabtree, the editor (Robert Downey, Jr.) arrives accompanied by a transvestite he met on the plane. And everyone ends up at a party at the home of the mistress and her husband, Tripp’s dean, a man who believes that Marilyn Monroe’s marriage to Joe DiMaggio was the defining moment of the 20th Century.

Tripp is irresponsible, but he cares about Sara more than he knew and he cares about James more than he thought he could. Perhaps it is because he wants to save in James what he fears he may have lost in himself — notice the way that Grady begins every sentence to James by using his name, as though to persuade himself that he is speaking to someone else. James is drunk on words and stories. Tripp may have been that way once, but now he has to resort to marijuana and whatever drugs he can scrounge from Crabtree’s suitcase.

In the course of the weekend, the dean’s dead dog, Marilyn Monroe’s wedding sweater, Crabtree’s luggage, and James’ manuscript end up in Tripp’s vintage convertible. That car then ferries the transvestite to his home (deconstructing the drag along the way), Tripp to his ex-wife’s parents’ house and his mistress’ greenhouse, then rescues James from his kindly but clueless parents, and is either stolen or retrieved by a man whose name is not Vernon but who looks like it should be.

In the course of this fantastic (in the literary sense) journey, all the characters are coping with problems and yet all are remarkably honorable and helpful. The ex-wife’s parents dress Tripp’s wound. The successful colleague tells Tripp how much he was moved by Tripp’s work. Even the man whose name is not Vernon gives Tripp and Crabtree a lift. In another movie, Tripp might think of stealing James’ manuscript, but in this one, he lets it replace his own, solving both James’ and Crabtree’s problems. Tripp limps through the movie with a bandaged hand, often wearing the ratty pink chenille bathrobe he wears when he writes. He is in something of a stupor, not just from alcohol and drugs, but from success, and failure. He still has James’ passion for writing, but he no longer has the innocence and sense of possibilities to “make the choices” necessary. When asked why he was writing the 2000-page book, all he can say is, “I couldn’t stop.” And when he says, “Sometimes people just need to be rescued,” he is talking about himself as much as James.

This grand mess of a movie has many pleasures, including a terrific soundtrack, marvelous performances, and a beguiling but highly improbable ending. Tripp’s colleague says that everyone has a story. What gets you from there to writing? He mentions faith, and Tripp mentions keeping at it. One reason is that stories like this one, highly imperfect but worthwhile, are what help us get to the ones that really make it all the way there.

Families who see this movie should talk about how the people in it establish their priorities and deal with the consequences.

Parents should know that this movie has drug and alcohol abuse, adultery, homosexual and heterosexual references (including a transvestite character), references to suicide, and very strong language.

People who enjoy this movie will also like Educating Rita and The Accidental Tourist.

Related Tags:

 

Drama Family Issues

Diamonds

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

Kirk Douglas plays Harry, an aging boxer recovering from a stroke, who wants to retreive some lost “magic diamonds” he once hid in Reno. So he sets off in a Thelma and Louise-style vintage convertible with his son (Dan Ackroyd) and grandson (Corbin Allred). And you haven’t seen many movies if you don’t guess that some major bonding is accomplished and some long-standing family wounds are healed along the way.

We want to like it. There’s a reason that road movies that feature both adventure and reconciliation are so popular, and of course we’re rooting for Kirk Douglas’ recovery from a stroke even more than for the character’s. And every so often it captures us with a genuine moment of humor or connection between the characters. But far more often it gets in its own way, especially with attitudes about drinking, smoking, fighting, and women that were out of date when the yellowing clippings in Harry’s scrapbook were first printed.

Parents should know that this movie originally received an R rating, but the MPAA backed down after Kirk Douglas lodged a complaint. They should have kept it an R. Nearly a third of the movie is set in a brothel, cutting back and forth between the sexual encounters of the three generations. While there is no nudity, the discussions of the encounters are explicit. Drinking, smoking, fighting, sex, and drug use are casually used as positive indicators of maturity and masculinity. A father takes his underage son to the brothel as an introduction to sex.

Families whose teens do see the movie might want to talk about the struggle Ackroyd’s character has to be the father he wishes his own father had been, the importance of letting people know that you love, respect, and support them, and how it feels to be suddenly alone and disabled.

Related Tags:

 

Drama Family Issues

Mansfield Park

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

Bodices may not be ripped, but they are certainly loosened in this very liberal adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. This is not your mother’s “Mansfield Park.” Fans of the book are warned early on that there will be some significant departures when the credits read that the screenplay, by director Patricia Rozema, is adapted not just from the novel, but also from the letters and journals of its author, Jane Austen. And indeed, Rozema has effectively removed the book’s frail and mousy — if resolutely honorable — heroine, and replaced her with some amalgam of Austen’s feistier characters plus a dash of Austen herself. Then she threw in a little bit of Jo March, Susan B. Anthony, and even Scarlet O’Hara for good measure.

And, for those who are not literary purists, it is good measure indeed. The movie version’s heroine is far more cinematic than the Fanny Price of the book, and the adaptation works remarkably well. Less successful is the attempt to import 20th century sensibility on issues like slavery (Fanny’s wealthy relatives own slaves in the West Indies) and some wild anachronisms (Fanny lies casually on her bed while she talks to her male cousin; neighbor Mary Crawford even more casually smokes a small cigar). And there is even that most unforgivable sin of movies set in the past – a character who says, “After all, it’s 1806!”

In the movie, as in the book, Fanny Price is from a large and very poor family. When she is a young girl, she is invited to stay with rich relatives as something between a servant and a companion. She is befriended by her cousin Edmund, but ignored by his dissolute older brother Tom and his selfish sisters, neglected by their parents, and bullied by her aunt, also a poor relative under their care. She grows up reading everything she can and doing her best to get along with everyone.

Henry Crawford and his sister Mary, both wealthy and attractive, come to stay nearby. Omni-seductive, they are both weak-willed and manipulative. They charm everyone but Fanny, creating many crises of honor and reputation.

The movie is sumptuously produced. Australian actress Frances O’Connor is terrific as Fanny. To use one of Austen’s favorite words, she is “lively,” but she is also able to show us Fanny’s unshakeable honor and dignity. Playwright Harold Pinter is outstanding as Lord Bertram.

Families should talk about some of the issues raised by the movie, including the family’s dependence on slaves in the West Indies to maintain their luxurious lifestyle, and the limited options available to women that led Fanny’s cousin Maria to insist on marrying a foolish – but wealthy – man. They should also discuss the Crawfords, two of Austen’s most intriguing characters. With wealth and charm of their own, why was manipulating others so important to them? One of the great moral crises of the book is whether the young people should put on a play (answer: they should not because it would create too great an intimacy). But Austen never shied away from having characters make ineradicable moral and social mistakes, and most of her books feature at least one couple who run off together without getting married and suffer some serious consequences. Perhaps in frustration over the difficulty of making those actions seem real to today’s audiences, or perhaps just as a way of making a classic work seem unstuffy, this movie has more implicit and explicit sexuality than we have seen in other movies based on Austen’s books (except maybe for “Clueless”). Parents should know that there is one scene with an implied lesbian interest and a brief inexplicit scene of an adulterous couple. Fanny finds drawings depicting abuse of slaves, including rape. Fanny’s aunt takes opium, her cousin is often drunk, and Fanny gets tipsy at a party.

Related Tags:

 

Based on a book Drama Epic/Historical Family Issues

My Dog Skip

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

This is a good, old-fashioned boy and his dog movie, based on the memoir of Willie Morris, who grew up in 1940’s Mississippi, a small, sleepy town of “ten thousand souls and nothing to do.” It is lyrical and very touching, with many important issues for family discussion.

Willie (“Malcolm in the Middle’s” Frankie Muniz) feels like an outsider, bookish and unathletic. He does not have a single friend to invite to his 9th birthday party. But one of his birthday presents is a friend, a puppy he names Skip.

Willie’s “lively and talkative” mother (Diane Lane. luminous as always) gives him Skip over the objections of his “stern and overbearing” father (Kevin Bacon). One of the most interesting scenes in the movie for older kids is the parents’ debate. Willie’s mother says, “He is a responsible boy who needs a friend.” His father says that pets are “just a heartbreak waiting to happen.” Having lost his leg — and much of his sense of hope about life — in a war, he wants to protect Willie from loss as long as he can. But Mrs. Morris knows that loss is the price we pay for caring, and that what we gain from caring — and from loss — is well worth it.

Skip and Willie find “unconditional love on both our parts.” Skip is a good listener and a loyal companion. Together, the boy and dog explore an ever-widening world. Skip helps Willie develop confidence and make friends with other boys and with the prettiest girl in school. Willie grows up in the segregated South, but Skip makes friends without regard for color, and takes Willie along.

Some of the adventures Willie and Skip share are scary (like an all-night stay in a cemetery that turns into an encounter with moonshiners) or sad (Willie’s hero, a local sports star, returns from combat in WWII very bitter and humiliated). Willie learns about the world with Skip. He learns about himself, too. Angry and embarrassed at his poor performance in a baseball game, he hits Skip, who runs away, devastating Willie. Taking responsibility for his behavior and facing the consequences start him on the road to his adult self.

Families who see this movie will have a lot to talk about. Parents should give kids some background to help them understand WWII-era America, with ration books and scrap drives. Be sure to point out the evidence of segregation, including separate ticket booths and seating areas at the movie theater and an adult black man calling a white boy “sir.”

Talk about what makes bullies behave the way they do and how the skills that make a child successful are very different from the skills that make an adult successful. This is shown by Willie and by his althetic friend Dink, who went to war filled with bravado and returned badly shaken. Discuss the way Willie and his friends respond to Dink’s return, especially in connection with Willie’s comment as an adult that “loyalty and love are the best things of all, and surely the most lasting.” Ask kids what they think of the way Willie’s parents disagree about whether he should have Skip, and how parents want to protect their kids, sometimes maybe too much so.

The movie tells us that even as a grown-up, Willie thought of Skip every day. Ask kids what there is in their lives right now that helps them grow up, and what it is that they will think of when their “memories of the spirit linger on and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded.”

Warning: spoilers ahead. Parents should know that there are a couple of strong words in the script, a deer is killed by hunters, a child tells a scary story, menacing bad guys threaten Willie and Skip, and Skip is badly injured. When Skip finally dies (of old age) it is still very sad. A four-year-old boy sitting near me was inconsolable and kept repeating, “Skip died?” all the way to the car.

Related Tags:

 

Action/Adventure Based on a book Based on a true story Drama Epic/Historical Family Issues For all ages For the Whole Family Inspired by a true story

October Sky

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

This true story of a boy from a small town who dreams of becoming a rocket scientist is one of the best films ever made about the thrill and hard work of science and a great family movie.

In 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made orbiting satellite. Thanks to Miss Riley (Laura Dern), a gifted teacher, Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his high school friends peer up into the clear October sky over their tiny West Virginia coal mining town to see its tiny spark drift across the stars. Homer dreams of being a rocket scientist. His father, John (Chris Cooper), the mine supervisor, does not understand Homer’s longing for wider horizons. But others do. Miss Riley roots for “the unlucky ones.” Homer’s mother covers the kitchen wall with a mural of the seascape she longs to see. Homer’s friends are glad to be a part of something new and important, and the community is proud to have a hero.

We know from the beginning where this story is going, just as we know with “Rocky.” The triumph of the underdog is one of literature’s most enduring themes. As long as it is done well, audiences are happy to go along and it is never done better than it is here. The script, the production design, and the acting are all superb. Gyllenhaal’s expressive eyes show his longing for the stars a million light years away and for his father’s approval in his own home. Cooper makes a role that could have been a one-dimensional tyrant multi-layered and complex, even sympathetic. Plot twists that might seem heavy-handed or melodramatic work because we know they really happened, and because these characters make us believe. We care so deeply about them that when we see real home movie footage of the real-life Homer’s experiments over the closing credits we feel as though they are a part of our family.

Parents should use this movie to talk to kids about how Homer, not a great student and not especially strong in math, became so inspired by an idea that he begins to think in new ways. Using math and science to solve problems made it real to him, and the work involved was — like the eight- mile walk to his experimental launch site — unquestionably worth it. They should also talk about why it was hard for John to support Homer’s ambitions, why his mother saw it differently, whether Homer made the right choice in going to work in the mine — and in leaving it, how kids at school treat the “nerds” and why, how people are evaluated differently in school than they are once they get out, and how life in 1999 is different from the world of 1957.

Parents should know that a drunken stepfather beats up one of Homer’s friends in one scene (and is stopped by John) and that there are some very mild sexual references.

Kids who enjoy this movie might also enjoy “The Corn is Green,” another true story about a boy from the coal mines who is transformed by education. Two different versions are available, one with Katharine Hepburn and one with Bette Davis.

Related Tags:

 

Based on a true story Drama Family Issues For the Whole Family
THE MOVIE MOM® is a registered trademark of Nell Minow. Use of the mark without express consent from Nell Minow constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition in violation of federal and state laws. All material © Nell Minow 1995-2024, all rights reserved, and no use or republication is permitted without explicit permission. This site hosts Nell Minow’s Movie Mom® archive, with material that originally appeared on Yahoo! Movies, Beliefnet, and other sources. Much of her new material can be found at Rogerebert.com, Huffington Post, and WheretoWatch. Her books include The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies and 101 Must-See Movie Moments, and she can be heard each week on radio stations across the country.

Website Designed by Max LaZebnik