January 8, 2001
Lessons in literature and life (A review of Finding Forrester) - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- The gasps were evident across the darkened movie theatre at the sight of Matt Damon in Gus Van Sant’s latest picture, Finding Forrester. Damon’s part is small, a mere cameo. The significance of his appearance is perhaps a more telling tale of Van Sant and his ability to tell stories on the screen and to envelop the audience with those characters that reside in those stories.
Finding Forrester, at face value has a solid cast. Damon aside, there are no less than 3 Oscar winners in the cast. F. Murray Abraham, won an Oscar for his portrayal of the jealous Solerie in Amadeus. Anna Paquin won at the tender age of 12 for The Piano, and Sean Connery won an Oscar for his supporting turn in The Untouchables. But the movie moves from only having a good cast to a having better story; a solid story that brings about the uncanny mixture of prose, basketball, rap and the inner-city. It brings together literature and the Yankees; a proud Scotsman and a naive young black kid. New York is its setting, life is its lesson.
Connery, plays William Forrester. Think of him as a J.D. Sallinger type, who writes the one greatly praised novel, and plays out the rest of his life cramped up in a Bronx apartment watching the neighbourhood riffraff play basketball. Rob Brown, who makes his screen debut, plays Jamal, an intellectual chap who inhabits the neighbourhood role of inner-city intellect, possessing much, much more. He meets up with the recluse and they begin a friendship. The camaraderie continues as Jamal leaves the inner-city to pursue education at a prestigious private school. With basketball in his blood and not-so good marks, but brilliant test scores, he is bequeathed a scholarship. The young kid meets up with the old coot often, and the curmudgeonesque facade put forth by Forrester is softened by the kid’s superb writing ability and voracious intellect. The recluse fades throughout the movie, as the idealistic boy helps his mentor, and in turn is being assisted by a Pulitzer Prize winning legend.
I bring up Matt Damon, because as you’ll recall in Good Will Hunting Damon played a troubled man with an overwhelming intellect. The stories are similar, and Gus Van Sant will claim guilt in being prone to bringing these life affirming stories to the screen. Perhaps it is cliché, but it’s actually a pretty good movie. Damon’s appearance late in the picture is telling in that his tour de force in Good Will Hunting brought him to the forefront of movie stardom. Almost subliminally, Van Sant’s direction sees Brown and Damon exchange dialogue, yet sees Damon the antithesis of a hero in Good Will Hunting christening Brown, the protagonist in Finding Forrester.
In between Hunting and Forrester was the remake, shot-by-shot of Hitchcock’s Psycho. Van Sant finds his heroes in the ordinary and not-so ordinary. At the same time he’s received criticism in crafting homoerotic imagery between his male leads. I didn’t see that here, but the images of Brown trying to teach sultry young Anna Paquin basketball, certainly evoked imagery that is not reminiscent of the charges laid unto the gay Van Sant, as seen in previous films. Also, F. Murray Abraham’s performance as the jealous teacher is superb. Abraham, good at playing the “bad” guy, does superbly well here. Joey Buttafuco, if you watch carefully, also has a part.
In a nut shell, Forrester is worth watching. It’s a good tale underscored by the haunting tunes played out by Miles Davis an era previous. Sean Connery reinvents himself, turning away the stereotype that he was merely James Bond. The young Rob Brown, who is no actor, makes us think he’s been acting his whole life. The acting is real and so’s the story. Finding Forrester is a film worth finding, this holiday season. Here’s hoping it’ll be found at Oscar time.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .