I'm sure "Finding Forrester" will have its share of comments, comparing it to the earlier success "Good Will Hunting" and rightfully so. In a way, it does seem a little derivative and after already seeing the magic that Robin Williams and Matt Damon sparked on screen, it's hard to feel a tad shortchanged.
One thing I was really impressed with was the opening sequence. Instead of boring us with a corny title sequence, we have a montage of shots giving us a great feel of its Bronx atmosphere. The montage is played to the soundtrack of a rap song, sung by a random street rapper. We have shots of different people in the neighborhood smiling at the camera. Basically, it starts off with a bang. And just like "Good Will Hunting" the interactions between the young people are perfectly realistic, though some could've been edited out for the purposes of shortening its running time of 2 hours and 10 minutes.
This is Rob Brown's first movie and he does a great job. But Sean Connery steals the show in his offbeat role as a hermit writer who has only published one book in his lifetime. His days of dodging bullets as 007 are over, naturally, so this is definitely a fresh new role for Connery. I don't think anyone could've played it better. And his character has some great, insightful things to say about the writing process. Being an aspiring screenwriter, I found his words to be somewhat uplifting. In the scene where Brown is at the typewriter and thinks about what to write, Connery exclaims "What are you doing!" He replies, "I'm thinking." "No thinking. That comes later. For your first draft, you write with your heart. You use your head for the rewrite." All this time I've been reading a book by this veteran screenwriter, who talks about all these special techniques about "preparing" for your new screenplay. "Preparing" doesn't work in the writing process. You simply have to do what William Forrester (Connery) says and write with your heart. And the film never really takes a corny, sentimental route. Something else I appreciated.
However, the cliches were here and there. When Brown goes to his new school, he's faced with Anna Paquin who (guess what?) turns out to be the headmaster's daughter. Later on, we have the inevitable scene where Brown and Paquin are having a ball and the father barges in, none too satisfied. So sometimes the film does get predictable, but never mushy. I like how the racial issues are never firmly pressed. Any amateur writer would've stressed the whole idea of Brown's character being African-American, going to a prep school and heavily bonding with Connery's (white) character. And of course we would've had the supporting characters complaining to Brown about how he's not "black enough" because of his decision to express himself intelligently through poetry. But none of that happens. I appreciated that.
"Finding Forrester" is most notable for one of Connery's best performances ever, but it's overall a good film. Not Gus Van Sant's best, but as others have inferred this is a hell of a lot better than his update of the Hitchcock classic "Psycho."
My score: 7 (out of 10)
P.S.: If others haven't given it away yet, expect a surprise cameo in the closing minutes of the film.
One thing I was really impressed with was the opening sequence. Instead of boring us with a corny title sequence, we have a montage of shots giving us a great feel of its Bronx atmosphere. The montage is played to the soundtrack of a rap song, sung by a random street rapper. We have shots of different people in the neighborhood smiling at the camera. Basically, it starts off with a bang. And just like "Good Will Hunting" the interactions between the young people are perfectly realistic, though some could've been edited out for the purposes of shortening its running time of 2 hours and 10 minutes.
This is Rob Brown's first movie and he does a great job. But Sean Connery steals the show in his offbeat role as a hermit writer who has only published one book in his lifetime. His days of dodging bullets as 007 are over, naturally, so this is definitely a fresh new role for Connery. I don't think anyone could've played it better. And his character has some great, insightful things to say about the writing process. Being an aspiring screenwriter, I found his words to be somewhat uplifting. In the scene where Brown is at the typewriter and thinks about what to write, Connery exclaims "What are you doing!" He replies, "I'm thinking." "No thinking. That comes later. For your first draft, you write with your heart. You use your head for the rewrite." All this time I've been reading a book by this veteran screenwriter, who talks about all these special techniques about "preparing" for your new screenplay. "Preparing" doesn't work in the writing process. You simply have to do what William Forrester (Connery) says and write with your heart. And the film never really takes a corny, sentimental route. Something else I appreciated.
However, the cliches were here and there. When Brown goes to his new school, he's faced with Anna Paquin who (guess what?) turns out to be the headmaster's daughter. Later on, we have the inevitable scene where Brown and Paquin are having a ball and the father barges in, none too satisfied. So sometimes the film does get predictable, but never mushy. I like how the racial issues are never firmly pressed. Any amateur writer would've stressed the whole idea of Brown's character being African-American, going to a prep school and heavily bonding with Connery's (white) character. And of course we would've had the supporting characters complaining to Brown about how he's not "black enough" because of his decision to express himself intelligently through poetry. But none of that happens. I appreciated that.
"Finding Forrester" is most notable for one of Connery's best performances ever, but it's overall a good film. Not Gus Van Sant's best, but as others have inferred this is a hell of a lot better than his update of the Hitchcock classic "Psycho."
My score: 7 (out of 10)
P.S.: If others haven't given it away yet, expect a surprise cameo in the closing minutes of the film.