Finding Forrester

Buy This Item Finding Forrester by Sony Pictures  Available from Amazon  $8.99  on 8-26-2008     <I>Finding Forrester</I> could have been a shallow variant of <I>The Karate Kid</I>, congratulating itself for featuring a 16-year-old black kid from the South Bronx who's a brilliant scholar-athlete. Instead, director Gus Van Sant plays it matter-of-fact and totally real, casting a nonactor (Rob Brown) as Jamal, a basketball player and gifted student whose writing talent is nurtured by a famously reclusive author. William Forrester (Sean Connery) became a literary icon four decades earlier with a Pulitzer-winning novel, then disappeared (like J.D. Salinger) into his dark, book-filled apartment, agoraphobic and withdrawn from publishing, but as passionate as ever about writing. On a dare, Jamal sneaks into Forrester's musty sanctuary, and what might have been a condescending cliché--homeboy rescued by wiser white mentor--turns into an inspiring meeting of minds, with mutual respect and intelligence erasing boundaries of culture and generation.<p> Comparisons to Van Sant's <I>Good Will Hunting</I> are inevitable, but <I>Finding Forrester</I> is more honest and less prone to touchy-feely sentiment, as in the way Jamal and a private-school classmate (Anna Paquin) develop a mutual attraction that remains almost entirely unspoken. The film takes a conventional turn when Jamal must defend his integrity (with Forrester's help) in a writing contest judged by a skeptical teacher (F. Murray Abraham), but this ethical subplot is a credible catalyst for Forrester's most dramatic display of friendship. It's one of many fine moments for Connery and Brown (a screen natural), in a memorable film that transcends issues of race to embrace the joy of learning. <I>--Jeff Shannon</I> Reader Reviews ***** 2000. Directed by Gus Van Sant. A cloistered writer becomes the mentor of a young man from the Bronx. Sean -Salinger- Connery, during a brilliant and almost mystical scene, literally passes on his talent to his disciple by making him re-write one of his unpublished essays. Masterpiece.

Finding Forrester Available from Amazon Price: $8.99 Updated on 8-26-2008.

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