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Finding Forrester (2000)
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Reviews Counted:121
Fresh:89
Rotten:32
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: Despite the predictability of its plot and its similarity to Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester has an honest, solid feel to it and good rapport between Connery and Brown.
Runtime: 2 hrs 16 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $51,370,406
Synopsis: Director Gus Van Sant brings to the screen this moving story of a grizzled recluse and an inner-city teenager brought together by their shared passion for writing. Like Van Sant's Oscar-nominated... Director Gus Van Sant brings to the screen this moving story of a grizzled recluse and an inner-city teenager brought together by their shared passion for writing. Like Van Sant's Oscar-nominated GOOD WILL HUNTING, FINDING FORRESTER earnestly explores the struggles of a youthful genius whose position in society (underprivileged kid from the wrong side of the tracks) makes him seem destined for failure until he forms a relationship with a gifted but introverted mentor who helps him see the light.The youthful genius is a talented urban basketball player named Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown), who in his spare time reads everything he can get his hands on, secretly scribbling prose and poetry into a composition pad. The introverted mentor is William Forrester (Sean Connery), who took the literary world by storm with his debut novel, AVALON RISING, 50 years earlier but now spends whole days shut inside his Bronx apartment looking out the window onto a basketball court where Jamal hangs out. Buoyed by excellent performances from Connery and newcomer Brown, FINDING FORRESTER paints a compelling, alluring portrait of friendship while offering intriguing insights into the heart and soul of the dedicated writer. [More]
Starring: Sean Connery, Rob Brown, Anna Paquin, F. Murray Abraham
Starring: Sean Connery, Rob Brown, Anna Paquin, F. Murray Abraham, Busta Rhymes, Michael Nouri, Tom Mullica, Lil' Zane
Director: Gus Van Sant
Director: Gus Van Sant
Screenwriter: Mike Rich
Producer: Laurence Mark, Sean Connery, Rhonda Tollefson
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Reviews for Finding Forrester
For all of Gus Van Sant’s narrative weavings, for all of his grabs towards emotions and reactions, it amounts to little; a belated film with belated functions.
To dismiss Finding Forrester as just a rehash of Good Will Hunting is not entirely fair.
It seems that this script was put through the ‘Hollywood wringer’ far too many times – squeezing out any real sense that it might be something different.
A nice-looking, nice-feeling exercise in conventionalism that sure could use a couple of transvestites and maybe a house falling from the sky.
An intelligent, subtle, in short remarkable take on growing up, being true to yourself and fighting the odds.
The unlikely friendship is touchingly authentic thanks to genuine and profound performances from Connery and newcomer Pitt.
It takes us inside the head of a young man whose black friends are suspicious of anyone who studies too hard and whose white colleagues wonder if he can study hard enough. Those two voyages make it worthwhile.
If director Gus Van Sant had always been a hack it wouldn't matter so much, but personally I find this form of licking the audience's cheeks like an obsequious puppy deeply offensive.
Movies about writers are notoriously hard to do, since writing by its nature is not cinematic. Finding Forrester evades that problem by giving us a man who wrote one good novel a long time ago, and now writes no more.
[Van Sant's] visual lyricism and uncondescending attitude toward almost everyone on screen ensure that the film won't succumb to formula.
The film is charming, smart, and extremely witty. Not in a manipulative way either. Just GOOD.
Earns its keep with the bracing interplay between Mr. Connery's old lion and Mr. Brown's savvy young prodigy.
Sean Connery nos oferece um dos melhores desempenhos de sua carreira...
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