FINDING FORRESTER

Victor Bloom MD

This movie was made last year and not everyone saw it. It's the kind of movie that should be seen more widely and discussed as well. It is not about life as we know it, but more like life as it should be. In many respects, though, it is like life as it is, because sometimes, in spite of obstacles and adversity, good things happen. And in spite of immense differences, people can develop significant relationships and bring each other out of the darkness and into the light.

Such was the case in "Finding Forrester." Forrester was a reclusive Pulitzer-Prizewinning author who wrote only one novel, but it was an enduring best-seller and the subject of endless discussions in schools in which literature is taught by intensive reading, analysis and discussion. In the movie we find out why he became so withdrawn and blocked. We find out how it was that a certain English teacher in a fancy prep school at one time had an interaction with this writer which made a significant and negative impact on each other.

But the central theme of the movie is the relationship between an African-American teenager who is a writing genius, and this withdrawn, phobic and crotchety writer. At first the connection was simply due to geographic proximity. The writer watched the neighborhood boys playing pickup basketball from his top-floor apartment window with a pair of powerful binoculars. Was he a basketball scout? The boys glanced up from their play every now and then, wondering what and who was behind the binoculars, and finally Jemal, who was a keen basketball player as well as an underperforming genius, accepts a dare and climbs the fire-escape and enters the apartment.

The old writer, hiding in the dark roars his disapproval, and the frightened boy beats a hasty retreat, accidently leaving his backpack behind. We see the hands of the old writer looking within and being somewhat surprised to find great books and talented writing instead of whatever else he might have been expecting from a neighborhood black kid in the South Bronx. We see the hands making red-ink comments on the boy's writing, odd comments, such as "constipated." We get the impression that this is no basketball scout, but an enigmatic writer and literary critic of considerable talent.

Jemal was frantic about his lost backpack, containing his books, writing assignments and his own creative writing. He probably expected to be getting into a lot of trouble, because he had no business being in that apartment and poking around. We find out soon thereafter that despite mediocre grades, his test scores are over the top and he is given a scholarship to attend an exclusive prep school in upper Manhattan. Mysteriously, the backpack falls at his feet on the sidewalk under the writer's window, and examining the contents, finds everything there, but in addition, comments on his writing. This is the beginning of a fascinating and unlikely relationship between the mysterious old writer and this young black boy.

What is lovely and inspiring is that there is no trace of black-white prejudice discernable in the two. They seem to be relating on a basis of mutual and growing respect and affection, as each is helping the other. The talented older writer is clearly the mentor, but the younger man is drawing the older one out of hiding. Why he is hiding is gradually and subtly unveiled in the latter part of the film.

Suffice it to say that the young black teenager from the streets, although academically superior and a basketball talent as well, is like a fish out of water, socially, in his new school. The headmaster is friendly and encouraging, and so is his teenage daughter, who befriends Jamal, and luckily the complications of an inter-racial romance is avoided. What we do run into is his English professor who is humiliated in class by challenging Jemal's knowledge of the literature. Magically, it surpasses that of the professor who develops a Salieri-like scorn of this young Mozart. He cannot believe Jamal's writing is his own and makes a serious accusation of plagiarism.

At the end is a dramatic denouement in which honesty and integrity prevail, a consummation which has brought about the accusation "feel-good" to this well-acted motion picture. The character of Jemal is pure fiction, as he is without a flaw, honest, hard-working and intelligent. That of the old writer is finely drawn and impressively acted by Sean Connery. The envious and malevolent professor is almost a caricature of Shakespeare's "Shylock," but this is fiction, and fiction his it's purposes and by definition is not necessarily true-to-life.

What is true to life, however, is that improbable relationships do occur and flower, and oftentimes lead to personal growth and love. It is also true that there are some undiscovered geniuses in the ghetto and some latent mentors among not-yet-dead white males. So if you are in the mood for a 'feel-good' movie, "Finding Forrester" is out in video.

Dr. Bloom is a psychiatrist in Grosse Pointe Park and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry. He welcomes comments to his email address: vbloom@comcast.net.