Film Review: Finding Forrester
Finding Forrester © Colombia All Rights Reserved
By Belle McIntyre
FINDING FORRESTER (2000) DIR. GUS VAN SANT
Reflecting on the passing of the magnificent Sean Connery, who embodied so many iconic heroic characters so elegantly and unforgettably, inspired a search through his body of work. I was one-upped by some co-addicted cinephiles who had just found Finding Forrester from 2000, which was news to me. Uncertain about whether a twenty-year old film without artistic or historical importance was relevant for review in a hip online magazine like Musee, I concluded that Sean Connery is important enough. Coincidentally, the film happens to be a charming and sensitive story about an unlikely friendship/mentorship along with coming-of-age and exiting out of old age themes - all timeless, ergo timely. Most welcome, also, is the chance to see Connery in an atypical role – a reclusive, complicated, vulnerable man staring down his imminent mortality alone.
Connery plays William Forrester, a literary legend and an enigmatic recluse living in faded, old-world grandeur within comfortable rooms filled with books and hung with paintings and accessorized with the accoutrements of a well-lived life. After the enormous success of his first novel “Avalon Landing” and winning the Pulitzer Prize, the universal accolades, fame and recognition, he eventually disappeared from public life (ala J.D.Salinger) and never published again. His book, “Avalon Landing” is still being taught in schools. Forrester’s apartment is in a mixed neighborhood of pre-war graciousness and inner-city grittiness in Brooklyn. A chance encounter with one of the neighborhood boys who play basketball on the courts outside of Forrester’s apartment gradually develops into a relationship when Jamal Wallace, discovering Forrester’s identity, contrives to know the man. It seems that Jamal (Rob Brown) is more than just a basketball whiz kid, he is also a seriously talented and aspiring writer.
The tentative dance that ensues as Jamal courts Forrester and the old man navigates through the years of barriers he has built to seal himself off from the world is very subtle and nuanced.
Interestingly, Forrester is not entirely unaware of the outside world, he is just out of touch.
An avid birdwatcher, he is constantly looking out of his window with binoculars, and inevitably he sees things other than birds, so he knows the ‘hood. The boys on the basketball court see him looking out with binoculars and they see deliveries being made, but they never see him.
They refer to him as “Window”. Only Jamal knows him and he has been sworn to secrecy if
he will help Jamal with his writing.
The role is perfect for Connery at that point in his life, allowing for him to play a more exposed, more tentative character, which he does with delicate aplomb. The chemistry between the seasoned old master with the sixteen-year old non-actor is so subtly directed so as not to slip into cliché or mawkishness. The gift of being “found” is what they both gave and received in equal measure. It is a beautiful story and a befitting one. It was Sean Connery’s penultimate film.
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