Finding Forrester (Wide Screen) > Reviews > The key to a woman's heart is ...

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	Clever and witty script, good performance from all involved
Disadvantages:	Girls could cry at the ending ; - )

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

...an unexpected gift at an unexpected time

Finding Forrester tells the story of a young black teenager named Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown), who has always just done enough to get the grades to get through high school, he made sure is always averages a C grade. He does however study at home and is an extremely gifted writer but he doesn’t let this show as he is also a great basketballer and thinks if he shows he is intelligent it may harm his street reputation. Jamal lives in the Bronx and they play basketball on a court next block of flats, there is one flat in this block that is owned by The Window, a person no one has ever seen but they see someone watching them through the curtains. In fact the story of The Window is like an urban legend around the schoolyard and in the end Jamal’s friends dare him to break into The Window’s flat and take something to prove that he did.

So when Jamal does this he is startled by someone and runs out quickly, leaving his backpack behind which contains all his writing. The next day while playing basketball he notices that his backpack his hanging on the inside of the window and while crossing the road it is dropped down to his feet. When Jamal arrive home he checks to see if everything is still there and finds that The Window has read all his writing and has left comments on how to improve them and what he’s doing wrong. So Jamal goes back to The Window for help and eventually finds out that The Window is in fact award wining writer William Forrester, who only wrote one book, that won the Pulitzer Prize, before disappearing and never releasing another book. Jamal is now being pressured to join a private school, not for his academic skills, but for his basketball style. Forester then becomes Jamal’s mentor and tutor to help him improve his writing skills, with the one stipulation - that Jamal never mentions anything about Forrester to his friends.

Finding Forrester's writer, Mike Rich, fortunately takes the high road with his story. It never breaks down into a stereotypical "white guy saves youngster from crime-filled ghetto" story; instead focusing on the relationships. Yes, there are a few race and class issues debated, but the script never beats you over the head trying to prove its point, which is refreshing. Connery and newcomer Rob Brown are terrific as expected, and other outstanding performances include Busta Rhymes(!!!!!) as Jamal's underachieving brother Terrel. Anna Paquin as Claire, Jamal's first friend at his new school, and F. Murray Abraham as Crawford, a hard-nosed writing teacher. The film is driven by the chemistry between Brown and Connery and they work wonderfully together. Writing is not exactly the most cinematic or exciting thing in the world, but the two carry it through, and make their scenes engaging and often entertaining. Newcomer Brown proves to be a real find, his performance here at least as much of a breakout as Matt Damon's was in Good Will Hunting. Brown brings an extremely natural feel to the film; I have no idea what his background actually is, but he certainly made me believe he had grown up in an environment not unlike Jamal's.

The film basically is Good Will Hunting 2, with director Gus Van Sant returning and the similar theme of exciting youngster being guided by the older role model. Again, the central relationship between Jamal and Forrester is excellently written, but supporting characters around the two seem rather thinly written and underused. The film as a whole also doesn't seem to quite be able to support its over 2 hour running time, and as a result, there are periods of the film that begin to feel slow, mostly surrounding Jamal’s troubles at school. The movie delivers a lot of pleasures as ridiculous as it is, there’s a definite thrill when Jamal keeps cutting off Crawford by completing the snippets of literature Crawford is trying to use to put him down, that reminded me a lot of a similar scene in Damien: Omen 2 when the teacher is asking him all the dates for historical events and he is answering them straight away.

Anna Paquin has a lot of screen time early (that will please Triplecthegame) on but fades out towards the end, the English Teacher played by F. Murray Abraham is the stereotypical school teacher bad guy and Busta Rhymes is underused, which is a statement I never thought I’d hear myself saying. It's not all perfect, one major storyline, in which Jamal is accused of plagiarism by a jealous teacher (F Murray Abraham) who doesn't believe a basketball player from the Bronx could possess such talent, is a little too familiar.

As there is not a section for this film’s DVD yet I will mention the features here until it is added and them move it over. Presented in its original 2.35 aspect ration the transfer is very sharp with no signs of digital artifacting. The only fault probably lies in the style of Van Sant and Director of Photography, Harris Savides. Many of the interior sets have been shot with limited lighting (as Forrester’s flat is always in the dark with the curtains closed), so the print is darker than most. The black levels are inconsistent, and colours are not always well saturated, and there seems to be a constant haze in the apartment of Forrester. Aside from this minor bug the transfer is good.

The first extra on the disk is the HBO making of Finding Forrester, which is the normal 15 minute making of feature that mixes footage form the film with short cast interviews that is really just an extended trailer for the film. We also have the documentary Found: Rob Brown, which focuses on the discovery of the films star and newcomer Rob Brown. There is more behind-the-scenes footage and, in addition, it seems that this material was culled from footage removed from the original feature. Director Gus Van Sant and other members of the crew talk about the casting process and finding a newcomer for such a major role. Brown himself also talks in-depth about his feelings taking on the role and making the film. Between the two features, all of the principle actors and some of the production crew show up to promote the film, though again little of substance is really learned.

The final extras on this disc include some Filmographies, theatrical trailers (Finding Forrester, Fly Away Home, First Knight and To Die For) and a couple of Deleted Choir Sequences, which features the Dewitt-Clinton High School Chorus performing Lacrymosa and Lean on Me.

Finding Forrester is a lot more than a simple ode to the craft of writing. The film is so well done, and so well acted that its difficult not to love the film. The film is charming, smart, and extremely witty. Not in a manipulative way either. Just GOOD. Sure there are stereotypes to tread around: A bitter teacher out to get him, the tug of war between athletics and scholarship, the family that NEEDS him to succeed, and a potential volatile relationship with A white girl!

The result is a way above average film that should be seen.