Finding Forrester, Movie Review Example

Writing, having mystical power, tends to change people who fully posses it, and change those around it. In the movie Finding Forrester, young Jamal Wallace tries to acquire this power to be a student of the ascetic William Forrester. Forrester is a person who has changed under the influence of his writing, when he does not even regards himself as a human anymore, but simply the mystical author of the astonishing book “Avon Landing”.

Writing is definitely one of the major themes of the movie, for their writing and the dignity behind it leads Jamal and Forrester to a level of trust and friendship, which have to resist the force of each other’s infirmities, as well as the hammer blows of the world that surrounds them. It evidently demonstrates that geniuses don’t happen to be geniuses by themselves, but merely by letting people close to them reveal the incredible hidden things within them. When Jamal tries to retrieve his backpack, he discovers that all his papers have been commented on. Thus Forrester agrees to assist Jamal to enhance his writing skills, but in return Jamal must not take the writing that he does out of William’s house. Consequently, writing brings together these two completely different people, developing a strong friendship between them. The idea of Forrester tutoring Jamal makes it a battle of words and ideas, for when Jamal brings up a question or a problem, William answers it with a lesson, which may take a form of another problem for Jamal to solve.

This movie also reveals the theme of lessons learned by two geniuses. William helps Jamal to discover the incredible writing talent he has, and with the help of Jamal, Forrester is able to uncover the world that he only watched through the window of his house during last forty years. The characters of the movie greatly contribute towards revealing this idea. Jamal and Forrester’s characters work well together, thus making clear the metamorphosis that undergoes both of them. When helping Jamal to improve his writing, Forrester learns more and more from him, thus he starts to see himself as an actual person and not simply and author. We can comprehend the effect this process made on William, for not only he went to Scotland, but left everything he owned to Jamal, even his writing – the most cherished thing for him. Multiple connections are made to flight and traveling in the movie, which are closely related to the main idea of writing and friendship. When Jamal takes Forrester out to the baseball game, William faces the outside world, but his social problem becomes identified, and it is clear he will deal with it again. Williams’s flight to Scotland evidently demonstrates us the lesson he learned from Jamal – he is a person and not just an author. Thus flight and traveling make him overcome the problem of reclusiveness and face the world around him. Moreover, the movie plot was built to reveal this idea realistically, without making it hard to comprehend.

All in all, this is a great movie that leaves you in wonder at the extent of a young boy’s talent, and meanwhile makes you guess at the true feelings of Williams Forrester. We could evidently see the idea of writing and friendship revealed in the film, and how it influenced the personalities and lives of main characters. Each of them has learned his own lesson, which fundamentally changed their lives.