Gus Van Sant has a knack for taking an average story and making it interesting to look at. At least with "Good Will Hunting" he had a great script to work with. The story carried that film, not the direction. "Forrester" has good ideas but often tries to cover more territory than it is able to.
The story is of a gifted student, Jamal, attending a Bronx high school. Jamal (Robert Brown) fears alienation from his friends if he reveals his love for writing and reading. As far as they're concerned, all he wants to do is play basketball. He bites his tongue in class when asked answers he knows the answer to--and he knows the answer to almost everything. His gift is exposed when he scores surprisingly high on the state standardized exam. Not even his own mother knows how brilliant he is. A nationally-renowned private school in Manhattan comes calling, offering him the opportunity to play basketball. But no one seems interested in his academic performance as long as the basketball team wins.
Jamal meets William Forrester, a Pulitzer prize-winning author for his first and only novel, who is living in seclusion in the same neighborhood as he and his mother. Forrester will help Jamal develop his writing in exchange for a vow of secrecy. Forrester lives under an assumed name, not wanting anyone to know where he is. He sits and writes all day, never leaving his apartment. No one reads his work, he reasons, because he doesn¹t need someone else to tell him what his writing means. He hides behind this so he can continue living in self-pity for things that happened in his past and things happening in the present. His tutelage of Jamal forms an unlikely bond of friendship between the two. Forrester finds the courage to finally share his pain with another person, which leads to the end of his seclusion.
Jamal and Forrester's friendship is the focus of the story. Writer Mike Rich adds other subplots that are supposed to support this main story, but end up getting in the way. A subplot involving Jamal and the only other black player on his school¹s basketball team is explored, but never followed through with. Another is an attempt at a love story. The first person Jamal meets at his new school is Claire (Anna Paquin), the daughter of the school's headmaster. The issue is supposed to be the he's black and she¹s white but it¹s just another subplot that's left hanging.
The story also relies coincidences that are difficult to accept. For instance, Jamal's writing professor, Dr. Crawford (F. Murray Abraham), just happens to assign Forrester's book to his students at the same time Jamal is discovering who his mysterious tutor really is. The two events, at this point, are completely unrelated. We are soon shown that the book is enormously popular, so there's some likelihood a professor would assign it to a first-year composition class. It's the timing that makes it so hard to believe.
Connery and Brown's performances are what make the whole film worthwhile. If newcomer Brown was intimidated at all by the legend, it doesn¹t show. If anything, there's the sense that Connery respected his co-star enough to not hold anything back, making Brown¹s performance that much stronger.
Grade: B-
The story is of a gifted student, Jamal, attending a Bronx high school. Jamal (Robert Brown) fears alienation from his friends if he reveals his love for writing and reading. As far as they're concerned, all he wants to do is play basketball. He bites his tongue in class when asked answers he knows the answer to--and he knows the answer to almost everything. His gift is exposed when he scores surprisingly high on the state standardized exam. Not even his own mother knows how brilliant he is. A nationally-renowned private school in Manhattan comes calling, offering him the opportunity to play basketball. But no one seems interested in his academic performance as long as the basketball team wins.
Jamal meets William Forrester, a Pulitzer prize-winning author for his first and only novel, who is living in seclusion in the same neighborhood as he and his mother. Forrester will help Jamal develop his writing in exchange for a vow of secrecy. Forrester lives under an assumed name, not wanting anyone to know where he is. He sits and writes all day, never leaving his apartment. No one reads his work, he reasons, because he doesn¹t need someone else to tell him what his writing means. He hides behind this so he can continue living in self-pity for things that happened in his past and things happening in the present. His tutelage of Jamal forms an unlikely bond of friendship between the two. Forrester finds the courage to finally share his pain with another person, which leads to the end of his seclusion.
Jamal and Forrester's friendship is the focus of the story. Writer Mike Rich adds other subplots that are supposed to support this main story, but end up getting in the way. A subplot involving Jamal and the only other black player on his school¹s basketball team is explored, but never followed through with. Another is an attempt at a love story. The first person Jamal meets at his new school is Claire (Anna Paquin), the daughter of the school's headmaster. The issue is supposed to be the he's black and she¹s white but it¹s just another subplot that's left hanging.
The story also relies coincidences that are difficult to accept. For instance, Jamal's writing professor, Dr. Crawford (F. Murray Abraham), just happens to assign Forrester's book to his students at the same time Jamal is discovering who his mysterious tutor really is. The two events, at this point, are completely unrelated. We are soon shown that the book is enormously popular, so there's some likelihood a professor would assign it to a first-year composition class. It's the timing that makes it so hard to believe.
Connery and Brown's performances are what make the whole film worthwhile. If newcomer Brown was intimidated at all by the legend, it doesn¹t show. If anything, there's the sense that Connery respected his co-star enough to not hold anything back, making Brown¹s performance that much stronger.
Grade: B-