Disc Reviews

Finding Forrester (2000) Blu-Ray Review

• 26th Feb 2017

Gus Van Sant remained in familiar territory he had begun in Good Will Hunting (1997) with Finding Forrester (2000) (there is even a cameo from Matt Damon in the latter film). In the earlier film a janitor at M.I.T. shows an unusual gift for mathematics. He had a rough past and is working as a janitor in lieu of a deferred prosecution. He befriends the institute’s Math professor who recognises his near genius like talent for the subject. Finding Forrester is about a young African American kid, Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) who lives in The Bronx and shoots hoops with his friends in a local basketball court. Jamal has a talent at school as a writer and demonstrates good knowledge in many things. Overlooking from an apartment where they play there is a reclusive individual often at the net curtains with binoculars. As a dare Jamal agrees to break in where curiosity gets the better of him in this dusty and book laden apartment. He is startled by the tenant and runs out, leaving his bag behind. On another day his bag is returned to him care of being thrown out of the window. Still curious about the owner, Jamal returns after the man had made comments about his writing in the bag. Concurrently Jamal’s writing has been recognised and he wins a scholarship to a prestigous New York private school. One of his first assignments is to a critique on a book, William Forrster’s ‘Avalon Landing’ and soon realises that this modern classic was written by the recluse in the apartment he has been visiting. And so begins a friendship between the young talented black kid and the cantankerous recluse. Jamal also has other challenges as he goes up against the bitter literary professor (F. Murray Abraham) at the school.

I first saw this film a year or two after it was originally released. I admit to not being overly enthused on seeing the film again as I remember it being overlong (at 130 minutes) and somewhat dull with a mis-cast Sean Connery. However, on viewing it again the film is seen in a different light. True, it is a heartwarming tale, and without being overly sentimental. Never the less the last 15-20 minutes are moving, cliches aside. Cliches include the soundtrack at the end of the film that includes Carl Orff’s ‘Gassenhauer’ (used throughout and effectively in Terrence Malick’s Badlands, 1973 and again in True Romance, 1993), as well as Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s versions of ‘Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World’. Connery was a co-producer and was at this stage winding down his career, this proving to be his penultimate film before going into retirement (the last being the dreadful superhero film, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 2003). On reflection Connery is pretty good in the role and clearly as producer had a great deal of input. However, an American actor and writer would have perhaps been more pertinent given the traditions to it pays to the great American authors in this J.D. Salinger type role.

Rob Brown, who plays Jamal had his film debut here and fills the shoes of the young talented writer from The Bronx. Although he still acts, unfortunately for Brown he has never since had a role that equals this one. Support is provided by Anna Paquin as the WASP family daughter and love interest and Michael Pitt as a friend at the school, but both these parts feel underdeveloped. Van Sant is a director who’s films are character driven while also tapping into the times. This is perhaps what makes this film pertinent today with racial tensions and prejudices in the US perhaps as high today as they have ever been since the Civil Rights movement and a need for a Black Lives Matter movement. The film strives and succeeds in looking beyond prejudice to talent and, if you will excuse the cliche, not what divides us but what can bring us together. Yes, the film is sentimental but in Van Sant’s he never lets that carry the film away.

Extras on the disc include a standard Making Of featurette and a more interesting mini-featurette, ‘Rob Brown: Found’ in which Van Sant talks about how the filmmakers discovered Brown.

Chris Hick