“Finding Forrester”, Starring: Sean Connery, Rob Brown, Anna Paquin, Busta Rhymes and F. Murray Abraham. Produced by Laurence Mark, Sean Connery and Rhonda Tollefson, Directed by Johnathan King, Written by Mike Rich.

2000, Columbia Pictures

Finding Forrester is the story of a young student who, through a misadventure, becomes friends with a reclusive writer, and both lives are enriched by the relationship.

Based on a 1998 screenplay by Mike Rich, which emerged as one of five finalists out of 4500 entries in the 1998 Don and Gee Nicholl writing competition, Sean Connery agreed to star as William Forrester, the enigmatic writer in the story, and to be one of the producers as well.

This movie has hints of greatness in the concept, and as a story of a deserving young man developing talent and skills in writing, through the tutelage of a famous author, this is a version of the “coming-of-age” genre which is popular among movie audiences.

The villain, the Literature teacher, is not very villainous, and the romantic interest, played by Anna Paquin, is sweet, but unreachable, as the white daughter of the rich patron of an exclusive school that Rob Brown, black and from a poor family, finds himself attending.

I was reminded of a kinder, gentler, shorter, magic-free version of Harry Potter under the tutelage of Connery as Dumbledore. Having said that, the movie is eminently watchable. The main emotional message that friendship is important, comes wrapped in lessons of Coleridge and Poe.

Rated PG-13, this is a nice family movie for a Saturday evening.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2007 at 1:25 am and is filed under LocSec's Monthly Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.