Finding Forrester movie review

Finding Forrester

The director of Finding Forrester is Gus Van Sant and the film was written by Mike Rich. The main actors in Finding Forrester are Sean Connery (William Forrester), Rob Brown (Jamal Wallace) and F. Murray Abraham (Professor Robert Crawford). These characters do an amazing job in the movie and other movies they were in.

The movie Finding Forrester is a great example of how the smallest action of kindness and friendship can change a person’s life and does a great job at showing it. Jamal was dared to go into the old man’s apartment; the old man who is always looking out the window. He goes in and is frightened by the man. Jamal runs out the door and leaves his book bag behind. The next day when Jamal is done playing basketball the man (William) drops his book bag from the window. Jamal takes out his journals and realizes that William has corrected and pinpointed good and bad details in them. He goes back looking for him to read more of his writing, but the man only says, “Why don’t you write me a 5000 word paper on why you will stay the f*** out of my house.” Jamal does just that, he goes home and writes the paper and takes it to him. When Jamal gets accepted into a new school he realizes that the author they are studying is none other than the man who he was forming a friendship with. After ALL that the friendship sticks.

This movie reminds me a lot of To Kill a Mockingbird. William Forrester is always in his house and never out when there is people around. In both the kids/teens try to see into the house to see what both men are up to and get caught. Also the men, Boo (To Kill a Mockingbird) and William (Finding Forrester) end up coming out, Boo, because the kids are in danger and William, because he forms a new friendship with Jamal and trusts him.

An element in this movie that was well worked with is, conflict. These elements are well because conflict is between Jamal and Mr. Crawford. Mr. Crawford tries to get Jamal in trouble because he says his writing isn’t his.

The message of this film is, don’t judge a book by its cover, meaning that Jamal and his friends judge William on what they hear about him and don’t bother to try to learn otherwise. Like when he is looking out the window, they think he is watching them, when he is really just looking at the birds. I feel the message was delivered well to the audience when Jamal finally gets to know William and realizes ALL his assumptions were wrong.