‘Wonder Boys’ unravels truth of humanity

loading...

In theaters WONDER BOYS

There is a moment in Curtis Hanson’s excellent film, “Wonder Boys,” when Michael Douglas’ character, Grady Tripp, a boozy, disillusioned, adulterous, pot-smoking English professor who has failed to follow the success of his first novel, “Arsonist’s Daughter,” with anything remotely publishable, says about his favorite student’s work: “It gets close to the truth.”

And that’s exactly the case with this film — it gets close to the truth,very close, which is perhaps the highest praise one can give any serious workof art.

“Wonder Boys,” Hanson’s first film since his Academy Award-winning “L.A. Confidential,” is terrific for many reasons, but most of all for its restraint, which shows across the board as Hanson brings together his colorful, off-beat threads and characters with a natural, seamless ease.

The film is too smart to use its wacky undercurrents merely as a means for jumping into lunacy, which it does. But its great triumph is in how it uses those undercurrents to get to the heart of what truly matters here: understanding human nature.

The film, a faithful adaptation of Michael Chabon’s 1995 novel, follows a fateful weekend in the life of Tripp, the derailment that ensues, and thehard truths one sometimes has to swallow and accept before growth and change can occur. If it’s about how middle-aged complacency and being stuck in the past can mire a promising future, it’s also about how unreasonable expectations, academic life and the bloat of tenure can also conspire to destroy that future. Dryly narrating his own life, Tripp walks us through most of his current pitfalls, which includes a murdered dog, an addiction to marijuana, a towering transvestite with a tuba, stolen Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, the knowledge that his wife has left him, and the mild shock that the university chancellor is pregnant with his child.

Some might feel the film lacks energy because of Hanson’s deliberate pacing, but this film isn’t a farce and it isn’t even a comedy. It’s paced as a drama, one that is sometimes funny because it knows that life’s absurdities are sometimes hilarious.

With Robert Downy Jr. in a wonderfully irreverent performance as Tripp’s horny editor, Crabs; Tobey Maguire perfectly dour as the wonder boy, James Leer; and Frances McDormand nicely cast as the university chancellor caught in the throes of an affair with Tripp, “Wonder Boys” never condescends to Grady’s mistakes. Instead, it respects the man, allowing him to be human in ways that ring with the truth.

Grade: A-

On video STIGMATA

Clearly, the bright, well-read folks who made “Stigmata” have no idea what stigmata means. Director Rupert Wainwright and his screenwriters Tom Lazarus and Rick Ramage have confused the term so humorously with demonic possession, they made their star, Patricia Arquette, speak in deep, rumbling croaks taken straight out of Linda Blair’s Academy Award-nominated performance in “The Exorcist.”

No religious ecstasy there — and no Academy Award nomination.

Worse, the film suggests that stigmata is something you can catch from holding a rosary, as if it were a deadly bacteria and not a phenomenon allegedly experienced by deeply religious people who have been taken over by the Holy Spirit.

Since the theology behind stigmata is lost on its filmmakers, “Stigmata” never creates a satisfying illusion. Wainwright’s heavy-handed direction suggests desperation. He doesn’t have much of a story to work with, so he throws a neverending barrage of religious cliches at the screen — water, doves, bleeding Madonnas, levitations.

His film isn’t scary, so he tries to give it life by cutting it like a Guns ‘n Roses music video, which only makes his dull film frightfully choppy and, at times, unbearably loud.

The performances by Gabriel Byrne and Arquette are enough to lift this film out of cinematic hell, but even Arquette’s character, a Pittsburgh beauty operator, knows something here isn’t right. At one point, she picks her ravaged body off the floor to say: “If it isn’t God who’s doing this to me, who is?”

Your director. Your screenwriters. Your agent. You.

Grade: C-

BROKEDOWN PALACE

Any movie that features a character whose name is Hank the Yank (Bill Pullman) can’t be all that bad, which is the case with “Brokedown Palace,” afair, sometimes surprisingly poignant film that features Claire Danes in a good performance as Alice Marano, a spoiled, manipulative American brat who believes she’s invincible.

A trip to Thailand changes that.

The film, which is this week’s second release to be shot like a music video, puts Alice and her friend Darlene (Kate Beckinsale) in a whole lot of Thai trouble when they meet Nick Parks (Daniel Lapaine), a smooth-talking Australian bloke who plants a few kisses — not to mention six kilos of heroin — on the girls before sending them off to a weekend in Hong Kong.

These two twits never see Hong Kong, but they sure see lots of the Brokedown Palace, a creepy Thai women’s prison that changes them in ways that neither expect. With spring break looming, this film’s release couldn’t be more timely.

Grade: C+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appeareach Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, each Tuesday and Thursday on “NEWSCENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and each Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”

THE VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of all recent releases in video stores.

The Best Man B Random Hearts C- Stigmata C- Bats C Brokedown Palace C+ Double Jeopardy B- An Ideal Husband A- The Story of Us D The Astronaut’s Wife D- The Winslow Boy A- Runaway Bride C- Stir of Echoes A- Tarzan B+