Reading about writer-director Curtis Hanson’s sad passing on Tuesday, I decided to dip into the archives and post my rant about his underappreciated masterpiece Wonder Boys (2000). Hanson is primarily known (and justly lauded for) L.A. Confidential (1997)and 8 Mile (2002). But it’s always Wonder Boys that I come back to every year, for all the reasons I exclaim below. Rest in peace, Mr. Hanson.
Photo by David Shankbone
What is it about adult movies with adult themes straddling the line between comedy and drama that so befuddles studio marketing departments?
Imagine you work for Paramount and you’re tasked with selling Wonder Boys. It’s an embarrassment of riches: Director Curtis Hanson, coming off of the Academy Award-winning L.A. Confidential; a bestselling novel by Michael Chabon adapted by top scribe Steve Kloves (nominated for an Oscar here); a bonafide movie star in Michael Douglas, and a staggeringly talented supporting cast (leading women and men in their own right) featuring Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr., Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes.
Easy sell, right? Well, it does deal with literature and writers. Oh god. And don’t forget, it’s also a movie for adults. Double-oh-god. Yes, Douglas plays an adult tenured creative writing professor with one brilliant novel to his credit, but also a persistent pot habit, a wife who’s just left him, a girlfriend who also happens to be his boss carrying an inconvenient surprise, two brilliant students one disturbed the other in love with him, a 2,000 page manuscript that he’s been working on for the last seven years and a harried, slightly unhinged editor desperate to see it. All of which comes to a head over one weekend, a literary festival at a liberal arts college in steel country.
Hmmm. You might need to stay late at the office to crack this one. How to package eccentric, flailing, flawed, but still loveable (i.e. human), characters? How to give us a taste of the film’s rich subtext—writing as a metaphor for life—as well as the recurring (and winning) plot device of a dead Rottweiler? A tone that bends ever so slightly toward farce but then snaps back into something melancholy at times but never somber, and always, always, shot through with a sense of fun, of wicked mischief?
Eureka, you’ve got it! Your ad campaign actually uses the film’s appealing idiosyncrasies as a selling point because you’re going to release it come awards season, when a discerning audience is expecting more “challenging” fare. It’s a no-brainer.
How about no brains? Because the execs ignore your memo, and in their infinite wisdom dump this into the theatrical release wasteland that is February. And nobody sees it. Nobody sees the pathetic hilarity of Michael Douglas as Professor Grady Tripp smoking a joint in his ex-wife’s dirty pink bathrobe. If no other reason, watch this pleasingly, painfully acute movie for that.