In Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys, based on the novel by Michael Chabon, Michael Douglas
delivers one of his most compelling performances as Grady Tripp, a disheveled, perpetually
adolescent English professor amiably coasting toward a midlife crisis. On the inaugural day of his
university's literary festival, Grady's third wife leaves him, and his mistress, university chancellor
Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand), announces that she's pregnant with their child. To further
complicate matters, Grady's reckless editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), desperate to
revive his flaccid career, arrives to pick up Grady's far-from-finished seven-years-in-the-making
follow-up to his critically acclaimed first book. As if that weren't enough to keep him reeling,
Grady soon becomes an unwilling accomplice to a canine homicide and the heist of a rare jacket
once worn by Marilyn Monroe, both committed by his brightest student--the languid, slightly
pathological James Leer (Tobey Maguire). Dressed in a ratty pink bathrobe and driving a stolen
car with a dead dog in the trunk, Grady must now find a way to return Marilyn's coat, write the
great American novel, nurture James's literary talents, discourage the advances of an amorous coed
(Katie Holmes), avoid the wrath of a tiny James Brown look-alike (Richard Knox), and reconcile
with Sara...all before the weekend is over.
Directed by Curtis Hanson - Rated R
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