Finding Forrester review

To the eternal gratitude of cinemagoers worldwide, director Gus Van Sant appears to be over the malady that caused him to turn in the abhorrent 1998 remake of Psycho. His latest film, Finding Forrester, returns to the theme he explored in his last but one title, Good Will Hunting (mentor adopts confused wunderkind) and adds in doses of Dead Poets Society, Hoop Dreams and Scent of a Woman for good measure. However, while it is entertaining enough, it is a little too gloomy and pedestrian for it to become a smash on the scale of the Matt Damon/Robin Williams lovefest.

Finding Forrester retells a story we have seen portrayed on screen countless times before: a bright but poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks is offered the chance of a better education and a good future but at a price. In this case the kid is Jamal Wallace (Robert Brown), who at the age of 16 is both a hugely talented writer and a star basketball player. Inevitably, public school in the Bronx can offer little to nurture such a prodigious talent and all too soon a swanky Manhattan college offers him a free place (as long as he helps them win the state basketball trophy). Initially hesitant, Jamal takes a few days to visit the school and finds himself amongst the sons and daughters of millionaires, as well as a troupe of zealous teachers, most notably Professor Crawford (F. Murray Abraham), a literary teacher obsessed with the solitary work of the legendary novelist William Forrester.

As he ponders his future, Jamal accepts a dare from his boys back in the hood, and breaks into the apartment of a local recluse known only by his nickname The Window. He is of course rumbled and, surprise surprise, the recluse turns out to be none other than the elusive Forrester (Sean Connery). Quite how the audience is supposed to accept this stunning coincidence is never dealt with. The subsequent relationship between Jamal and Forrester is the backbone of the film, and it is a symbiotic friendship: Forrester helps the boy with his big decision as well as his literary skills, and Jamal helps Forrester to realise that the world may be worth venturing out into once in a while.

Connery nicely underplays Forrester - initially irascible, he mellows and becomes more humane (sensitive even) as the film progresses. He's a JD Salinger figure, and it would have been all too easy for Connery to go over the top: pleasingly he resists the urge. Jamal is also a three-dimensional character and not quite the stereotype he might have been. On the whole the relationship between the two is well-handled if subdued.

The trouble is, the whole film is very subdued. The lack of real dramatic tension (there is a derisory romance between Jamal and one of the students at the posh school played by Anna Paquin, as well as some conflict with one of the rich kids, but that's about it), coupled with some extremely gloomy cinematography makes it a stretch at over two hours. The predictable ending isn't quite as slushy as it might have been, but overall the film is neither as challenging or as thought-provoking as it might think it is.