FINDING FORRESTER
Year: 2000
USA & UK: Columbia Pictures
Cast: Sean Connery, F Murray Abraham, Michael Pitt, Anna Paquin, Robert Brown, Joey Buttafuoco, April Grace, Buster Rhymes, Gerry Rosenthal,
Director: Gus Van Sant
Country: USA
UK: 136 mins
USA Rated: PG-13 for brief strong language, some sexual reference
UK Certificate: 12 contains infrequent strong language and mild sexual references
USA Release Date: 12 January 2001
USA Release Date: 22 December 2000 (Limited Release - Los Angeles and New York)
UK Release Date: 23 February 2001
Synopsis
He was a vibrant personality who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning classic novel four decades ago. And that's the last the world heard of William Forrester. That's until Jamal Wallace, a brash 16-year-old with writing aspirations of his own, cracks the veneer of Forrester's sheltered existence and re-ignites the dreams of this literary legend in the winter of his life.
Known as the neighborhood recluse, silver-haired Forrester (Oscar®-winner Sean Connery) is a man whose mystery and eccentricity border on the mythical. When Jamal (newcomer Rob Brown)— a talented African-American scholar-athlete who is recruited by an elite Manhattan prep school for his brilliance on and off the basketball court— sneaks into his apartment and accidentally leaves behind his backpack full of writings, they both get something unexpected in return. Compelled to look past skin color and suppositions, Jamal encounters not only his first fan, but a mentor who will challenge and change him forever, and Forrester has his first reason in years to emerge from his self-imposed solitude.
Family isn't always what you're born with— sometimes it's the people you find, sometimes it's the people who find you. From Oscar®-nominated director Gus Van Sant comes Finding Forrester, an uplifting story about the unusual dynamic between an isolated author and the confident teenager who changes his life.
Through their unique, occasionally contentious alliance, Jamal navigates a new world outside of the South Bronx home he shares with his loving mother and brother. Forrester is Jamal's unlikely guide on his journey into the strange, strait-laced academic community in which he must now prove himself as a writer.