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Finding Forrester Movie Review

Finding Forrester movie review

Finding Forrester is a 2000 American drama film written by Mike Rich, and directed by Gus Van Sant. An african-american teenage boy named Jamal Wallace, is invited prestigious private high school. During this time Jamal befriends a reclusive writer, William Forrester, through whom he helps find his talent for writing and also helps Jamal find his true self.

16 year old Jamal Wallace plays basketball with his friends at the court outside Forrester’s house, the group of friends usually notice that Forrester watches them play from the window on the top floor of the building. One day Jamals friends dared him to sneak up to Forresters apartment and take something, to prove he was there. To his surprise Forrester catches him, making Jamal run away leaving his backpack. Later that day Forrester dropped Jamals backpack onto the street for him to retrieve, and in Jamals notebook he noticed that his journal entries were edited and there were other notes made. Jamal then goes back to Forrester apartment to get him to read more of his writing. Forrester agrees to help Jamal with his writing only if he doesn't ask him about his personal life.

Throughout the movie, their friendship keeps growing and they end up both helping each other overcome things in their lives. To make their friendship stronger, Jamal takes Forrester to a Yankee stadium one night, where Forrester revealed stuff about his personal life and his family. He also explains to Jamal why he became reclusive.

During this time of Forrester helping Jamal with his writing, Jamals writing improved, making his professor, Crawford accuse him of plagiarism. To settle this Forrester appears at the class and reads aloud an inspiring essay, which professor Crawford praised thinking it was written by Forrester, but soon was told that Jamal actually wrote it.

Overall I think this is a great movie to show true friendship forming between who was once two strangers. I thought the film was very powerful and inspiring. I've learned that everyone deals with things internally. I definitely recommend everyone to watch this movie.