20 November 2000

As I drove away from Sony, my eyes welled up with tears. I had just come out of a screening of Finding Forrester. I had begged my way into a very early screening. Only a handful of people were there, a few of whom I knew. I wept a little during the movie, but to maintain proper professional form, I held back. And then, on Venice Boulevard on a chilly night with the top down, my eye ducts filled. And Finding Forrester truly owned my heart.

I threw the Almost Famous CD into the car stereo and drove home to pick up a complete Simon & Garfunkel CD (Almost Famous has only one S&G song) and my computer, then headed to Chinatown to sit in a real Chinese restaurant to eat real Chinese rice to let this movie sink into my soul and my writing. It’s 10:37 pm and the rice just arrived.

It’s not something I get to feel very often these days. You’ve probably felt this yourself. You walk out of a theater and the world isn’t so tight anymore. You feel the air, but you are apart from the earth... almost a religious experience. And while you wish that you could share this feeling... that you could give someone you love a chance to feel this nirvana that comes in the nature of art, you can’t... you can only walk on air and try not to break the spell... try not to let the feeling get away from you.

I talked my way into Finding Forrester because I want to write an Oscar piece, something I can’t do until I see the few remaining contenders. I’m seeing Traffic tonight. [David update: That didn’t happen... I’ll see it next Saturday.] I don’t know quite when I’ll see Chocolat or All the Pretty Horses or Cast Away... that’s the whole list of unseens. [David update: I forgot the possibility of Thirteen Days at the time.] Finding Forrester will be one of the major contenders.

Unless Tom Hanks does something truly stunning in Cast Away, Sean Connery will not only be nominated for best actor... he will win... going away. Geoffrey Rush is magnificent in Quills, and there are a boatload of great supporting performances by men this year, but the humanity of Connery is... how to describe it? You know how Connery had his Bond thing and then, starting with The Untouchables, became this tough, broguey old guy in movie after movie? You’ve never really seen this Sean Connery before. His vulnerability is so touching, so intimate... so real. He never hits a false note. (My only criticism about the character is that every once in a while, he has too much liner under his eyes... not an important one, but in such a tender performance, it was distractingly movielike at times.)

Opposite Connery in the film -- it’s really a two-character movie in many ways -- is Rob Brown, a 16-year-old non-actor whose screen debut is rivaled this year only by Michelle Rodriguez in Girlfight. Throughout the movie, I kept waiting for him to make a misstep, but it never happened.

Supporting actors are Anna Paquin, who takes another leap into adult acting in her best role yet and F. Murray Abraham, who has a rather thankless role, though he brought some subtlety to it when chewing scenery was a real option. However, a gentle authenticity is really brought to the film by a group of young actors playing the friends of Rob Brown’s character, Jamal. They are James "Fly" Williams, Zane Copeland, Damany Mathis, and Damien Omar Lee. Busta Rhymes gets his first real acting challenge here and is good. And the woman who plays Jamal’s mother, whose name is not in the press notes, is so authentic and soft that she might be Mrs. Brown.

But what about the movie? Well, in some ways, it’s a more challenging version of the Good Will Hunting story mixed in with Blue in the Face. Jamal, a young man from the projects in The Bronx finds a mentor who really understands his gift. And Jamal gives this man his friendship in a way that the man hasn’t experienced in a long, long time. It’s a love story between a lost father and a gifted son, brought together by fate.

I don’t want to tell you more than that because you deserve to experience it for yourself... though I’m sure that the advertising will give away some of the surprises, like who Forrester is... even the surprises you know are coming, but still love watching come to pass.

Gus Van Sant, who found commercial nirvana with Good Will Hunting and then was blasted from all corners for experimenting with a color Psycho (I got the joke, but I don’t think it was unreasonable that others didn’t), has emerged with a voice that is clearer and more inventive than ever. It really reminded me of Soderbergh’s work in Erin Brockovich, which was so influenced by earlier work in somewhat more experimental movies like The Underneath. Van Sant’s use of color in this film is pretty spectacular, but only if you are paying close attention. This is not a showy visual film. But almost every sequence has a textural richness that fills the space. His use of the handheld camera in intimate interior scenes between the teenagers is, again, subtle but perfect -- it allows these boys the keep the true pace of their lives, not forcing them into a Hollywood structure. Of course, credit must also be given to his director of photography, Harris Savides.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the find of Rob Brown is the find of screenwriter Mike Rich, for whom writing Finding Forrester was a part-time gig. This guy is from Portland, Oregon, and works in radio while he and his wife raise their three kids. I suspect that he’ll be commuting weekly before long.

Other tech spots are also nearly perfect. Production designer Jane Musky brings the sets to life, from Jamal’s home to Connery’s. The film Kids feels like part of the mix here -- in terms of the street language and the sense of improv; so I guess it should be a surprise that Van Sant brought in Dogme 95 cutter Valdis Oskarsdottir, who cut The Celebration and Mifune as well as Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy. But don’t let that scare you. This movie shifts speeds so gently that you won’t likely notice.

So, as of this writing, Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich, Philip Kaufman’s Quills and Gus Van Sant’s Finding Forrester are the movies to beat at this year’s Oscars. All three are from edgy, indie-minded but experienced filmmakers. All three are from first-time screenwriters (Susannah Grant, Doug Wright, and Mike Rich). All three have sure-bet acting nominees in lead and, probably, supporting roles. None are conventional, saw-it-coming movies. And all three are from major studios (Universal, Fox Searchlight, Columbia). Go figure. Sony Classics’ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon should be there with them, but I am now convinced that the studio is going to blow it with this could-be-seminal film.

The rice is done... as are the shrimp. I wolfed them down, trying not to get any on my keyboard. My hunger for the food was almost as intense as the hunger for this movie... the latter probably led to the former. My stomach, like my heart, is full tonight. Here at Sam Woo’s, I’ll tip well with cash. Perhaps Van Sant & Co. will get their tip in gold.

E ME: Surprised? Who are your candidates?