
Talented basketball player Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) has dreams of becoming a successful writer, and finds help in the form of William Forrester (Sean Connery), a reclusive novelist who lives in his neighbourhood. The pair meet when Jamal breaks into Forrester's flat, but a warm student-teacher bond soon develops between them, with Forrester helping Jamal improve his writing and Jamal helping Forrester overcome his reclusiveness. However, when Jamal rewrites a piece of his new friend's work for a school assignment, his vindictive professor Robert Crawford (F. Murray Abraham) accuses him of plagiarism, a charge which could seriously effect his school career.
Review
Finding Forrester is a movie that is hard to categorize. I would say most of all it is about human relationship and how an open mind to the unexpected can open the heart. Agoraphobic writer Forrester had locked himself up in his apartment and basically given up on life when he meets young James Wallace, to whom he can teach a lot but from whom he picks up a new lease on life, to the point that he wants to go back to his native Scotland to die. He then relates how this was the happiest period of his life, his Sunset, which is also the title of his second and final novel he leaves on his desk, unpublished, waiting for James to write a preface.
It is also about hope in the face of seemingly unsurmountable odds, as James, a black from the Bronx destined for crime and a life in the streets, can use his intelligence, his basketball skills and not a little luck to make a real life for himself.
The movie also says a lot about life in the Bronx (though things have improved there since) and about how elite American schools are ready to close an eye on academic performance to attract athletic talent in their recruitment process.
A good line to remember: to impress a woman, give her an unexpected gift at an unexpected time. Well we all knew that, kind of, but good reminder.
This is the next to last appearance of Connery in a film before his retirement.
Sinossi
Da una piazzetta del Bronx, dove giocano a pallacanestro, alcuni ragazzi di colore guardano le finestre di un appartamento sovrastante. Lì abita sotto falso nome un misterioso individuo che da anni non esce più di casa. Un giorno uno dei ragazzi, Jamal, accetta per sfida di andare a vedere chi c'è veramente in quella casa. Si introduce, viene scoperto, scappa ma dimentica lì lo zainetto con libri e quaderni. Intanto un esclusivo liceo di New York ha messo gli occhi su di lui e gli offre una borsa di studio, soprattutto per le sue doti nella pallacanestro. Ricevuta indietro la propria roba, Jamal si accorge che sulle cose scritte nei quaderni ci sono correzioni e giudizi. Il ragazzo, 16 anni, va nella nuova scuola, comincia gli studi e scopre che quell'individuo è William Forrester, scrittore vincitore anni prima di un Pulitzer e poi misteriosamente scomparso.