After viewing Wonder Boys. At the beginning, the music is a little decadent, so I thought it must be a sad film again, but when I keep watching I found I was totally wrong, it’s a comedy. The surprising thing is I saw the young Spider-man Tobey Maguire and young Iron Man Robert Downey Jr act important character in Wonder Boys. I think every young man like their hero movies and Downey truly has such gift of humor, his character always can make us laugh. I like the scene that he called James “Jimmy,Jimmy,Jimmy” . It’s so cute. The film is very different from the other films I have seen in class. First, this film is totally narrate in chronological order and the characters in this movie are all kind. Second, in Wonder Boys it has voiceover, a narrator Grady himself. Third, it’s a totally comedy, though there is some helpless emotion in the film, we can still find the humor in it.
The film is about a professor of English at the university called Grady. Seven years ago his novel made him famous, become the Wonder boy. But seven years later, his writing into a bottleneck, for seven years he haven't finished a novel. His wife left him, and the headmaster his affair told him she was pregnant and the child’s father was Grady. But his unlucky things are not end yet, in the headmaster’s house after the party, he was bitten by the crazy dog. And his students James, in order to save him, James use the gun shot and kill the crazy dog. And then two people with a dead dog started to find the solution. Meanwhile, James took the collection of headmaster’s husband, the jacket that Monroe wear when her get married. For the explicitly presented events, such as Grady, he has written a novel for seven years, but it still haven’t finished yet, Grady even don’t know what did he write, he just can’t stop writing. Also, like James, he likes staying with his teacher Grady, his parents has died and his grandmother don’t like him, he feel the father’s love from Grady, so he want to follow Grady instead of going home. When Grady go to join the party that was held in headmaster’s house, the dog‘s bark and the dialogue, we can feel the ambiguity between Grady and headmaster. In the Wonder Boys, the plot events are presented in chronological order. Using the chronological order, it can narrate the story more clear, though this order we can easy to know about the story of Grady, and though the develop of story, it’s easy to find the relationship among the characters, and personalities of characters. We know the humor of Terry, the gift of James, the helpless Grady.
I think it has a 3-act structure. The first part is Grady has a class with his students and reads James’ novel. At that night, Grady go to join the party, and in that party Grady take james to see the jacket of Monroe, and James kill the crazy dog to save Grady. And then film goes into the second part, Grady and James go to join the meeting, during the meeting Grady talked with the headmaster. And then the plot keep developing. I think the turning point is Grady try to find his car and jacket, Grady and Terry go to the seaside, and Grady find the car but he didn’t find the jacket, Grady fainted again. When he wakes up he finds Oola wear the jacket, suddenly Oola’s husband use gun to threaten Grady, and at that time Terry try to save Grady. However, the draft of Grady’s novel was blew away by wind. At that time Grady finally wake up and give the jacket to the Oola. And then is a happy ending.
The major event is Grady meet a lot of troubles, and he tried to fix them, and realize the true life. The minor events are about James, Terry, and headmaster. James kill the dogs, Terry is here to ask Grady finished his novel as soon as possible, the love between headmaster and Grady. We can’t remove any minor events, because all of these events push the story develop, and from these events we gradually know the relationship among these characters.