# Finding Forrester (2000)

### reviewed by
Robin Clifford

    "Finding Forrester"

William Forrester (Sean Connery), four decades ago, received the Pulitzer Prize for his first and only novel, Avalon Landing, then seemed to drop from the face of the earth. That is, until he crosses paths with 16-year old Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown), an intelligent and talented neighborhood kid who has the same passion for writing as the old recluse in Gus Van Sant's "Finding Forrester."

Forrester is known in his Bronx neighborhood only as "The Window." The kids playing basketball across the street see his shadowy figure looking out the window of his run down brownstone, but no one knows anything about the man. On a dare, Jamal agrees to sneak into the hermit's apartment and take something as proof of his visit. The deep voiced, white haired man startles the boy and, instead of procuring a trophy, he leaves his backpack containing all his writing in the man's cluttered apartment. Jamal figures that that's the last of it until the mystery man returns the pack - with all of Jamal's notebooks annotated and graded. This begins a teacher/student relationship that ends up going both ways, with each learning life-changing lessons from the other.

I was struck, while watching "Finding Forrester," that I had been there before, but I couldn't quite put my finger where and when, exactly. It really isn't a mentor/apprentice flick like "The Karate Kid" where the "kid" learns all manner of things from his guru that change his young life. "Forrester" is a two-way road as the student/teacher relationship blurs between Forrester and his protégé. As the story progresses, Jamal is not the only one who gets to grow and mature both emotionally and intellectually. By the end of the film, no surprise, the older man, too, becomes a different, better person. Then, it dawned on me - "Man Without a Face" and "Renaissance Man" both draw on the same premise. Unfortunately, the two-way street story didn't work too well in either of those movies and works only a little better in "Finding Forrester."

The reason that "Forrester" works better than other films of the same ilk rests squarely on the shoulders of young Rob Brown. The newcomer, a non-actor until now, literally dominates the screen with a fresh, self-assured presence that allows Brown to play opposite the veteran Connery like a true equal. Brown exhibits no tentativeness in his character and delivers his soliloquies and intellectual bon mots with a certain hand. When Jamal is derided by a snobbish yuppie as being ignorant about his precious car, a BMW, the young man lets the guy have it with a complete history of the marque that leaves the snob speechless. Brown pulls this and other speeches off with a natural cadence that rings true. Plus, his deftness at playing basketball (an important point of the story) only adds to his character. It is an impressive debut performance that raises the whole film up a notch.

Sean Connery is a seasoned thespian who has achieved worldwide icon status, so there are certain expectations whenever he stars in a movie. He has transitioned from the cool, suave James Bond persona into a senior statesman of the acting profession. Now, he is usually positioned as the wise sage who dispenses his knowledge to his various neophytes (see "Name of the Rose," "The Untouchables," "Rising Sun" and "Entrapment," among others). He does that in "Forrester," but with a more vulnerable spin on the character. The vet thesp does not try to upstage his costar, either, allowing the younger actor to effectively play off of Connery's character.

Supporting cast is left to fill out the background without intruding on the action too much. F. Murray Abraham plays high school teacher Robert Crawford, a less talented contemporary of William Forrester who questions Jamal's education abilities when the boy gets a scholarship to Crawford's prestigious private school. He's too obviously a device to allow the arrogant teacher to get his comeuppance from Jamal and William by the end of the flick. Anna Paquin is a fellow student of Jamal's at his new school. The pretty young actress comes on strong, but her character becomes ambiguous as a hint of romance with Jamal is introduced but goes nowhere, as if the makers didn't have the guts to play out an inter-racial relationship. Busta Rhymes, in the small part as Jamal's parking lot supervisor brother Terrell, is a funny character, providing much of the comic relief for the film. Other supporting parts are generic, including Michael Nouri as Paquin's father.

The main attraction of novice screenwriter Mike Rich's script is the dialog afforded to Connery and Brown, especially Brown. A film about the art and craft of writing should have some discussion of the nuts and bolts of that craft. Rich provides a good deal of such discussion, effectively, between the two characters, often times to intellectually funny ends. Otherwise, the story follows routine lines as Jamal faces the scandal and accusation of plagiarism and Forrester overcomes his own fears to come out of his reclusion and help his young friend.

Helmer Gus Van Sant, known for his edgy, independent filmmaking, like "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho," has gone mainstream in recent years. His "Good Will Hunting" brought him to "Hollywood." His remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" smacked of acceptance of Van Sant (if not his lovingly crafted remake) by the big guys on the West Coast. "Finding Forrester" lacks any of the helmer's earlier distinctive directing style. It is straightforward, routine storytelling that lacks Van Sant's mark, but helps make him a directing attraction for conventional movies.

Tech credits are solid, although the editor (Valdis Oskarsdottir) could have used some judicious direction in cutting the film down from its near 140 minute run time to something that would have kept the movie tighter and more viewable. As it is, you expect what is going to happen early on and I got impatient waiting for the final resolution of the tale to get under way.

"Finding Forrester" should get a decent draw, initially, because of its megastar Connery, but the real reason to see it is for the remarkable debut of Rob Brown. Now, here is a kid who is worth the price of admission. I give it a B-.

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