Flopped Michael Douglas & Tobey Maguire Comedy Is the Best Underrated Gem of the 2000s
The film turned out to be Tobey Maguire’s first major role before he became a Spider-man.
Summary:
- Back in 2000, Michael Douglas starred in a dramedy that eventually ended up not even breaking even — however, this particular movie became the actor’s most powerful performance.
- The film that also stars Spider-man’s star Tobey Maguire follows a university professor who, after not achieving his professional goal, starts questioning his position of young writers’ mentor.
- Despite the box office failure, the movie with the star-studded cast received a warm welcome from critics with a score of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The recent decades in Hollywood have repeatedly proved that sometimes everything is about competent marketing — and some films may serve as the most striking examples of it.
Back in 2000, a dramedy with Michael Douglas in the leading role was critically acclaimed upon its release, but eventually ended up being a box office failure due to the misguided promotional steps. Despite that, the financial disaster didn’t besmirch the leading actors’ careers — quite the contrary, the movie witnessed their best performances.
Based on Michael Chabon’s 1995 novel of the same name, Wonder Boys follows professor Grady Tripp, portrayed by Michael Douglas, who teaches creative writing in an unnamed university somewhere in Pennsylvania.
Tripp happens to be an experienced writer, but probably not in its best meaning — the character had once created a novel that later on found an overwhelming success among the public and clearly promised the prospects of a flourishing career. But then something very unexpected happened — and Tripp got stuck with a forever lasting writer’s block, not being able to even finish his second novel.
Wonder Boys finds main characters played by Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire on the crossroads of their career path. Grady Tripp has to struggle with his inner insecurities as he tries to push himself forward to be a worthy example for his students while one of the latter ones, James Leer portrayed by Maguire, is so immersed into his own world where he’s a proclaimed writer that he finds it difficult to come back to reality where nothing has ever been like this.
Over the course of the plot Tripp proceeds to be a true mentor for his student who seems to be capable of adapting Tripp’s biggest dreams and making them true. The absolutely different, yet strikingly similar stories of both characters bring them closer to each other in their common unachievable goal, the dramatical aspect of which is reinforced by Douglas and Maguire’s powerful performances of people who suddenly lost their biggest incentive.
In fact, even the marketing failure that eventually made Wonder Boys become a box office flop didn’t mean that much for the movie’s success.
Filled with brilliant performances from Hollywood’s biggest stars like Douglas and Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes, Robert Downey Jr. and many others, the film found a well deserved place in the critics’ hearts by landing a solid 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.