The story covers two pivotal days in the life of Grady Tripp and it is a funny, poignant, and endearing ride. Wonder Boys shoots off in unexpected directions but manages to maintain a coherent story line. The twists are unexpected but don't come across as cruel or loopy. I haven't seen a movie that managed to hold together such disparate plot points as: a dead dog in the trunk of a car, shot twice in the chest; the theft of an authentic Marilyn Monroe coat; even an out of the blue hilarious scene where what appears to be a raving maniac jumping on Douglas' car has a purpose in the story.

Curtis Hanson's follow up effort to L.A. Confidential comes across as an intensely personal story. In L.A. Confidential Hanson created a near perfect period piece with detail that rang true from the look to the dialogue. He achieves a similar effect with Wonder Boys, using the same cinematographer on Confidential, Dante Spinotti, creating a drab college university town in winter where politics, egos and the latest laurels are the yardsticks of achievement. Yet, smartly, the story avoids falling into conventional stereotypes.

The juggling of a myriad of subplots is truly amazing. This movie easily could have been an incoherent mishmash of disconnected scenes, but the core of Douglas' character resolving his multiple predicaments carries it through to the end. And the humor is in small telling moments, such as when a dog starts sniffing around the trunk of Douglas' car, sensing the poor dead pooch inside, to a greenbean cop who forgets to put the parking brake on his cruiser when he stops to question Douglas.

This is one of the best cast movies in quite some time. Douglas is perfect as a rumpled sardonic professor struggling with the quiet despair of the world pressing in on him. This is easily his best pure acting role in many years. McDormand (Fargo) is also very effective as the woman he has gotten pregnant. Robert Downey, Jr., Richard Thomas, and Rip Torn play key small roles perfectly.

The writing is sharp and incisive. It doesn't become a cloying showcase of the young hot buck writer and the jealous aging has-been. Steve Kloves, who wrote and directed both The Fabulous Baker Boys and Flesh and Bone has a great sense for dialogue that reveals the complexities of the characters.

Wonder Boys is not a story of new beginnings so much but rather the struggle of changing your life when it is more than half over, while the previous baggage comes along for the ride. All the characters in this story struggle with disappointments and unrealized dreams. Ultimately, the message is about keeping perspective in one's life. This movie is the embodiment of the John Lennon quote: "Life is what happens to us while we're making plans."