Finding Forrester (2000)

September 2004.... While walking through the aisles of Blockbuster in search of films my wife and I may have missed through the years, we stumbled on "Finding Forrester". I had a slight recollection of a recommendation from a friend some time ago. In a nutshell, we really enjoyed this film. Both main characters are charming and convincing. The story makes you think and is clever. If you liked "Good Will Hunting" you will probably like this movie too, since it has a similar flavor to it. Though the film is 4 years old, the story is timeless and worth watching. Enjoy, Jimmy

Fmovies: Jamal Wallace is a black highschool student living in the Bronx, New York. He has a talent for basketball, which is popular with his friends and a talent for writing that he tends not to talk up. His test scores bring him to the attention of an exclusive private school with offers of a scholarship, starting immediately. Meanwhile he gives in to his friend's challenges and breaks into the flat of a man known as "the window" because he never leaves his flat but just stares out at the world passing outside. When he is confronted by the man, Wallace flees but forgets his bag, but it is given back later, with all his note book scribbled on and critiqued. He goes back to the flat and tries to get the man to help him further with his writing.

Has it been so many years since Good Will Hunting that Van Sant felt the need to remake it with elements changed? And if so did he feel so insecure about doing it that he delivered with such little originality and blandness so that the audience knows just what they are getting and feels comfortable (if unimpressed)? I guess the answers to both those questions is yes because Finding Forrester is very much a version of Good Will Hunting with the basics kept the same and other bits changed around. Of course this does not mean that it is a bad film because I actually quite enjoyed it; although I knew just where it was going and what it was doing from start to finish. In this way it is a bit annoying that director and writer should be so uninterested in doing anything other than trudging out such obvious material.

The story, although familiar is well enough told though to make it worth seeing. What made it much better for me though were the two genuinely engaging performances in the lead. Given fairly obvious characters to work with, I felt that both Brown and Connery took it, worked it and made it more than the sum of the words in the script. Brown is impressive by how much seems to be going on behind his eyes and I was more impressed when I learnt that this was his acting debut. Connery is equally as good in a role that he could have slummed off his famous voice and natural presence; but instead he works with a vulnerability that is convincing and makes his character and the story so much more interesting. Neither of them can make this a wonderful film but they both do a lot of work to make it an enjoyable and engaging one. Support from Abraham is by-the-numbers but effective (although his final scene is unconvincing); I didn't understand why Paquin bothered (or why they bothered to have her character in the story) while Rhymes is just what you expect and only looks weak at the end when he is asked to emote.

Overall this is a solid and enjoyable film despite the fact that it seems determined to do just what you expect it to do. That said the story is still interesting but what really does the business are the two great performances from Brown and Connery – both as individuals but also together; they take the obvious material and make it somehow much more convincing and engaging. Not a great film by any stretch of the imaginative and too derivative to really stick in the mind but does enough to entertain.

Director Gus Van Sant took the best parts of his own Good Will Hunting and Scent Of A Woman and fashioned Finding Forrester. The title is a something of a misnomer in that Forrester and someone else kind of find each other.

The title role of finding Forrester is played by Sean Connery who is a J.D. Salinger type author who has lived as a recluse in a brownstone. He wrote one novel back in the day and never wrote another. Presumably he said all there was to say in his mind.

A young ghetto kid with a talent for basketball and a bigger talent for writing meet in a rather peculiar fashion that I won't go into. They form a nice relationship, supplying needs for each other. Rob Brown who was a newcomer played the kid who has gotten a basketball scholarship, from a posh prep school, but has dazzled many with his abilities as a writer.

Finding Forrester has an interesting commentary on our stereotypes. Brown is in the school to bring home a basketball champion. Black ghetto kids are supposed to have talent in that direction. But creative writing? Just where do they think the James Baldwins spring from? That's no matter to frustrated professor F. Murray Abraham who teaches because he failed as a novelist. As Connery puts it people can get the mechanics of writing down, but talent can't be learned.

Anyway Brown gets put through a ringer like Chris O'Donnell did in Scent Of A Woman. Can you imagine the late J.D. Salinger coming out of his hideaway in New England on such a mission as Connery undertakes. Much bigger than what Al Pacino did in Scent Of A Woman.

Connery and Brown do form a nice bond and they have good chemistry for the viewer. And that's really about 80% of Finding Forrester.

You'll find Finding Forrester worth the effort.

Finding Forrester fmovies. What a nice movie. Great plot, nice character development, and moments of brilliance. To be sure the story of a prodigy and brilliant but sometimes reluctant mentor has been told before, but this story is a unique and interesting take on the subject. Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) is a writing prodigy. His journey makes for riveting stuff.

Strengths of this movie? I love the depth to Jamal's character - he portrays the inner conflict the character feels without over-acting or unnecessary melodrama. The relationship with Forrester (Sean Connery) is a thing of beauty, in large part because Connery is (as usual) wonderful.

Downsides? Well, not any major ones in my opinion. You can nitpick almost any movie to death, but this movie is solid.

In the end, its strengths are great, its weaknesses are minimal, and the memorable touches here and there (moments of beauty between Forrester and Jamal, Busta Rhymes as Jamal's brother, and some beautiful quotes) make this a winner!

'Finding Forrester' is without any doubt the best movie of the year 2000. I've heard many people say that this is just director Gus Van Sant's retread of his oscar winning hit 'Good Will Hunting'. That is the furthest statement from the truth. Eventhough the general idea of two different people bonding is here, everything else is as different as it comes.

The story is about Jamal Wallace(Rob Brown, making his bigscreen debut), an allstar basketball player who's only 16 but has a passion for writing and reading. One night on a bet he breaks into the apartment of a person only known to the neighborhood kids as "The Window". But when he's caught, Wallace bolts and forgets his backpack. Later he gets his backpack back, with all his written material analyzed, corrected ect. After revisiting the man, Wallace finds out that "The Window" is none other than reclusive author William Forrester(Sean Connery), who has been hiding for 40 years. They cut a deal that as long as Jamal doesn't tell anybody about William, then William must help Jamal with his writing. Over the course of the movie a beautiful bond forms as the two different people become friends and partners. Along the way William helps Jamal deal with his biased english professor Robert Crawford(F. Murray Abraham), his new girlfriend(Anna Paquin), his brother(rapper Busta Rhymes) and everyone else in his life.

The acting in this film is universally excellent, and no matter how it is billed Brown is the real star of this movie. Connery is brilliant but isn't on the screen enough to outshine Brown. Abraham comes off as the perfect nemesis and Busta Rhymes acquits himself rather well. Anna Paquin isn't too bad but she isn't given too much to do. Excellent supporting cast withstanding the best scenes in the film are the one on one interactions between Brown and Connery. I especially loved the "Soup questions" scene and the Jeopardy scene.

Considering this is Van Sant's first film since the terrible 'Psycho' remake he made a few years back he does very well. And surprisingly he generates more tension and suspense in one basketball sequence late in the movie than he did in all of 'Psycho'.

Overall this is not only Van Sant's best movie but also the best film all year. And after seeing this movie three weeks after the Academy Awards it makes it all the more shocking that 'Gladiator' won as I can't see how, in any way, it is better than this great film. Like a great book 'Finding Forrester' gets better every viewing and i'm sure it will stand the test of time. 10/10

The mechanics of the movie have been well-reviewed by others. Yes, it could definitely have been a better movie, but then again what movie can't you say that about? In terms of plot and character development what it needed most was another 30 minutes, but at two and a quarter hours already most studios would never allow that. (Note that the movie did not seem nearly that long to me.) Perhaps the plot and story could have been tighter, but it's really a remarkable job for first-time screenwriter Mike Rich.

The acting, while not always remarkable, was quite good. Connery brilliantly underplayed Forrester, yielding a less dramatic but much more realistic portrayal of the writer. Rob Brown's portrayal of Jamal was equally reserved yet forceful. The directing held the two characters in balance well. The other characters were well-acted though not generally well-developed (hence much criticism of this movie).

Others have compared Finding Forrester to Goodwill Hunting (also directed by Gus Van Sant) and to Scent of a Woman, suggesting that it is just a ripoff of the plot in those two. If so (which I doubt), those are two pretty good movies to plagiarize. The basic concept of Forrester's story (first novel wins Pulitzer -- what do you do for an encore?) has also been done before, but I've never seen it done so well (and without resorting to The Bottle as an excuse for a wasted life).

What's been missed in the reviews I checked was a discussion of who found whom. When you boil it down, Jamal found Jamal and Forrester found Forrester (just in time), though they found themselves by reaching out to each other and forming a bond of friendship across a gulf of age, suspicion, and race. The way they do this, without the usual twists of self-destruction and miraculous salvation, is both touching and refreshingly real. And finding oneself, in its essence, is what EVERY good drama is about, so, yes, there is a similarity to Goodwill and Scent and every other good movie ever made.

Included in the movie is a very brief first course in writing. Though the movie doesn't dwell on it, the way it presents the process of writing (and of the criticism of writing) is refreshingly realistic.

Speculation about the "real" identity of Forrester is interesting. Salinger has been mentioned, but the similarities are only superficial. Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) is a much better fit (first novel wins Pulitzer, nothing else ever written, lived as a recluse), but I almost favor the enigmatic Gardner McKay (though Forrester is certainly different in many ways from McKay). However, it's just as likely that Rich had no particular person in mind when he crafted Forrester (since, after all, the First Novel Syndrome is a well known plot theme).

All in all, while not The Great American Movie, it's a very good movie and well worth watching.