Stars:
Michael Douglas,
Tobey Maguire,
Frances McDormand,
Katie Holmes,
Robert Downey Jr,
Rip Torn,
Richard Knox,
Jane Adams,
Philip Bosco,
George Grizzard,
Richard Thomas,
Kevin Bishop,
Alan Tudyk,
Anika Bobb,
Michael Cavadias,
Patricia Cray,
James Ellroy,
Yusuf Gatewood,
Marita Golden,
Elisabeth Granli,
Richard Hidlebird,
June Hildreth,
James Kisicki,
Rob McElhenney,
Charis Michelsen,
Lenora Nemetz,
Bingo O'Malley,
Victor Quinaz,
Screamer,
Katherine Sweeney,
Tracey D. Turner,
Bill Velin
Director:
Curtis Hanson
Summary: College Professor and novelist, Grady Tripp, is suffering from writer's block which causes him to be be filled with self doubt. Based on the novel by Michael Chabon.
In Curtis Hanson's WONDER BOYS, based on the novel by Michael Chabon, Michael Douglas delivers one of his most compelling performances as Grady Tripp, a disheveled, perpetually adolescent English professor amiably coasting toward a midlife crisis. On the inaugural day of his university's literary festival, Grady's third wife leaves him, and his mistress, university chancellor Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand), announces that she's pregnant with their child. To further complicate matters, Grady's reckless editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), desperate to revive his flaccid career, arrives to pick up Grady's far-from-finished seven-years-in-the-making follow-up to his critically acclaimed first book. As if that weren't enough to keep him reeling, Grady soon becomes an unwilling accomplice to a canine homicide and the heist of a rare jacket once worn by Marilyn Monroe, both committed by his brightest student--the languid, slightly pathological James Leer (Tobey Maguire). Dressed in a ratty pink bathrobe and driving a stolen car with a dead dog in the trunk, Grady must now find a way to return Marilyn's coat, write the great American novel, nurture James's literary talents, discourage the advances of an amorous coed (Katie Holmes), avoid the wrath of a tiny James Brown look-alike (Richard Knox), and reconcile with Sara...all before the weekend is over.