Finding Forrester Movie Review

Finding Forrester , staring Sean Connery and Rob Brown is a movie about following your dreams, never giving up on yourself or others. The movie was directed by Gus Van Sant and produced by Columbia Pictures in December 2000. It manages to be both entertaining and share a beautiful story about a young black male who hides his gift.

Finding Forrester really helps illuminates how Jamal Wallace(Rob Brown), the 16 year old black male, doesn't want his friends to know about his gift. In the film Jamal and his group of friends were always concerned about a person would you peek out the window at them. Jamal was dared to sneak in, which leads to him letting people find out about his gift, when the person who peeks out at him, has a compelling background history with the art of literature. Jamal gets an astounding mark on his test scores which his teachers can not believe and he is asked to go to a private school, where he can continue to play basketball. Towards the end of the movie, Jamal is believed to have plagiarized a story he handed in and it jeopardizes his chances in staying at the Prep School.

Gus Van Sant has directed many other movies, one in which is similar to Finding Forrester is Good Will Hunting. The main character in Good Will Hunting is a janitor and has a genius-level intellect, eidetic memory and a profound gift for mathemetics. The story line is similar to that of Finding Forrester, so it shows the Gus Van Sant prefers stories about characters who have profound gifts but hide them because of reasons unknown.

The acting in this movie is very well done! Sean Connery is an amazing actor, he manages to capture the heart and mind of everyone. His character, William Forrester, has so much to teach young writer Jamal Wallace although he never really teaches him to write, but instead he teaches him how he can get his passion for writing onto the page.

The movie message becomes clearer as we reach the end of the film. The definition of family is not being blood related but rather a group of people who are generally not blood relations but who share common attitudes, interests, or goals. This is true for the relationship of Jamal Wallace and William Forrester because the more they get to know each other, but the closer they become, and each lost family members and can relate to eachother. They learn that you must protect who and what you care about, no matter what! "In an ordinary place, he found the one person to make his life extraordinary. "