Hangover Cinema: Wonder Boys

In the days where cable was still charming, the afternoon movie was a very specific brand. While putting off starting your day, or recovering from the previous night’s misdeeds, you’d flip to TBS/TNT/WGN/USA or any other low-stakes, non-premium channel. Behold, a movie you’d never even heard about. It could have recognizable stars, maybe from their younger days before they figured out their hair. An Oscar-winning writer or director’s name could flash across the screen and confound you as to how you’d never seen this part of their filmography. It could even have a baffling premise, and you simply have to see what they make of it. You’d suffer through the loop of commercials and promos just to get to the end. 

There’s so much written about the greatest films we’ve ever seen. It’s not easy to find new ways to describe the emotions a beautiful, widely-loved piece of cinema stirs up in the majority of an audience. This is why I’m pointing a spotlight at the unspectacular movies that filled television’s days for 30-or-so years. The reason these were available for cheap timeslots is because their often lukewarm financial performances urged studios to sell off the syndication rights for a song. Hangover Cinema is the stuff of half-baked premises, unrealized performances and poorly executed action. They’re not bad enough to be a complete bomb, not even laughable while taking themselves too seriously. They’re often made at the wrong time or they don’t have the kick that the recipe needs. 

A lot of these movies stuck with me, maybe from repetition, but I'd like to think it’s because whatever got them greenlit in the first place shone through an otherwise somewhat underwhelming presentation. In an age where streaming is quickly becoming the only option, I’m remembering what made crappy cable TV a sometimes rewarding surprise.

Wonder Boys

Director Curtis Hanson steadily escalated his success throughout the 1990’s with Bad Influence, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, The River Wild, and peaking at arguably the most successful James Ellroy adaptation with L.A. Confidential. He made a career of depicting characters’ violently harrowing trials that would define the rest of their lives. He was well-versed in both the art of the thriller and the stylistic shine of classic Hollywood noir.

With that in his rearview, it’s surprising that he would adapt Michael Chabon’s 1995 novel Wonder Boys as a follow-up to 1997’s Oscar barn-burner that was L.A. Confidential. Even more surprising would be his new angle on Michael Douglas, an actor who had became defined as the de facto psycho-sexual thriller leading man during the previous decade. Besides collaborations with Danny DeVito, Douglas had rarely honed his comedic talent. Since Wonder Boys, however, it’s become a muscle he flexes a bit more often in his later years. 

Douglas’ lackadaisical, burnt-out narration introduces us to a sleepy college town (shot by Dante Spinotti in a glowing winter Pittsburgh) where we meet Grady Tripp (Douglas), a creative writing professor with only one universally-acclaimed book under his belt. As he prepares for a weekend writer’s convention hosted by the University, his wife has left him, his department head’s wife (a very no-bullshit performance from post-Oscar Frances McDormand) is pregnant with his child, and he is expecting a visit from his editor, now turned professional loser because of his client’s writer’s block, played by the still charming/pre-blockbuster Robert Downey Jr.

Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes play two of Douglas’ students who become intertwined in his drunken miscreant behavior. Maguire (right off the heels of Cider House Rules but before his takeover as Spider-Man) turns in a lovingly aloof performance as James Leer, a young writer and compulsive liar hoping to find his voice. He gets a lot of goofball moments, mostly involving him sampling Douglas’ vices and reacting with an innocence true to a bookish liberal arts major. Holmes is comparatively underwritten, but effective as a conscience for Douglas in crucial moments. 

Over a weekend of would-be vignettes featuring an array of great character actors (Rip Torn, Jane Adams, Alan Tudyk), we’re treated to a lot of lighter hijinks. The characters narrowly avoid consequences while stealing a piece of hollywood memorabilia, kidnap Maguire out of his parents’ basement, unknowingly joyride in a stolen car. Chabon’s knack for dry, knowing witticisms is represented well in Steve Kloves’ screenplay. Almost everyone gets a wry, laugh-out-loud moment. These sequences keep the plot limber and in motion.

In between the more raucous bits, we are given meditations on the creative spirit, chaotic interpersonal relationships, and the weight that notoriety brings. The moments after the parties and adventures leave room for somber, magic moments with luminous glow in the wee hours of the morning. These characters’ hapless quest to find something new about themselves makes for a balm of messy, comfort-food dramedy tropes. 

While McDormand has little screen time (and her/Douglas’ chemistry is a bit questionable), we can see she is tired of waiting for her love to mean something again. The romance she’s found is in a broken man. This lost weekend is a journey for Douglas to fall back in love with the written word as he finds what he long forgot in mentoring Maguire. Holmes learns that you can’t put everything on your heroes, and Downey Jr.’s faith in his talented friends pays out like a slot machine. 

As we stumble along with these lost intellectuals finding themselves, there’s a soft relief that comes from meeting them in the deep end of their respective troubles. We want these choices and reflections to matter. While not the genre that defined him, it ends up resonating with Hanson’s knack for stories about abrupt personal transformation. For a movie with so many gentle contemplations, it is very lean. There’s not many distractions to the main conflicts for Professor Tripp. The chapters that unfold give a look at an otherwise stuffy intellectual world with real human storytelling. It’s not quite a coming of age story, as our protagonist has already gone on that journey. Instead, this movie is about coming back from what life beats out of you with age. This shaggy, stoned, sentimental artist flick shows us the truth we find in crisis, the entanglement of life and passion, and how sometimes we come out the other side of a dark night of the soul inspired and rejuvenated.