Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Finding Forrester Blu-ray Movie Review

Good Jamal Wallace.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 27, 2021

Those of us who have lived in Portland, Oregon for decades can be among the most ardent fans of Portlandia, a show built around the perceived (and, frankly, probably real) eccentricities of a city that often feels it's been the forgotten west coast urban child in a family that includes Seattle (its nemesis in the sibling department), San Francisco and of course Los Angeles. Ardent fans of the series may recall that Gus Van Sant made two guest appearances through the years, which is perhaps proof enough of my thesis about Portland (or environs) residents and their love for the goofy series, but which intrinsically might "identify" Van Sant as one of those crazy "artistes" that Fred Armisen and Carrie Rambo so delighted in making fun of. While Van Sant started to attract considerable attention for more indie minded efforts like Mala Noche (seemingly still awaiting a release on Blu-ray), Drugstore Cowboy (also still missing in action in high definition on disc) and My Own Private Idaho, Finding Forrester found (sorry) Van Sant attempting to craft a more mainstream success a la what was at the time of Finding Forrester's original theatrical release still one of the biggest films in (then) recent years, Good Will Hunting. While that film was famously written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (who took home Oscars for their efforts), Finding Forrester was the product of another Portlander, Mike Rich, with whom radio listeners in this market were well acquainted due to his stint as a news guy on KINK (more about Rich and radio in my final comments, below). That said, there are definitely some through lines between the two films, aside and apart from Van Sant's involvement (and a brief cameo by Damon in Finding Forrester).

Both Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester deal with "undiscovered" geniuses, and older mentors who help foster their understandings of both the world at large and their own unique individuality. Good Will Hunting's area of expertise was mathematics, though he's employed as a janitor, while Finding Forrester finds (sorry again) high school basketball star Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) harboring a "secret" life as a gifted writer. Jamal in fact deliberately hides his intellectual accomplishments, preferring to hang out on the neighborhood basketball court, which is surrounded by apartment buildings, where a reclusive figure the local guys refer to as "The Window" can be seen behind the curtains keeping an eye on things below. On a dare, Jamal breaks into "The Window"'s apartment, but he's discovered, leading to the central relationship of the film.

That relationship is of course between Jamal and "The Window", who turns out to be a famous author named William Forrester, who, it has been widely reported since the film's release (including by Sean Connery), bears more than a passing resemblance to one J.D. Salinger, at least insofar as Forrester, like Salinger, prefers his "alone time" with almost obsessive fervor. The film documents the growing relationship between Forrester and Jamal, as the elder author attempts to school the obviously gifted Jamal. Making the story perhaps just a bit more rote is a subplot involving Jamal gaining entrance to a tony prep school based largely on his basketball skills, where he runs afoul of imperious English teacher Robert Crawford (a typically despicable F. Murray Abraham), who suspects Jamal of plagiarizing the essays he's handing in. Jamal also begins a nascent romance with another student named Claire (Anna Paquin).

There are parts of Finding Forrester that are undeniably hokey, but the film works up a rather considerable amount of emotion along the way, aided and abetted by some sterling performances, including a well matched Connery and Brown. The coda might be a bit of a cinematic cliché, but it still in ultimately rather moving.

Finding Forrester Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Finding Forrester is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. Eureka only sent a check disc for purposes of this review, and so I'm not privy to any information contained in the insert booklet about the provenance of the source element and/or the transfer. This is a nicely organic looking presentation, one that offers good detail levels, but which can at times have a slightly soft quality, especially noticeable in some of the midrange outdoor material. The palette looks natural, but lighting and other stylistic choices can often add a yellow or brown tint to the proceedings. There are some minor deficits in shadow detail in some of the dimly lit interior scenes, as in some of the sequences inside Forrester's book filled apartment. Grain resolves naturally and I noticed no compression anomalies.

Finding Forrester Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Finding Forrester features nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks. The surround track significantly opens up both the outdoor material, as well as some of the basketball scenes (especially late in the film), as well as providing a more substantial accounting of the enjoyable music the film offers. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout (and there's quite a bit of enjoyable "street patois", including some delicious line readings from Connery). Optional English subtitles are available.

Finding Forrester Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:30)


• HBO First Look (HD; 15:30) is a promotional featurette with interviews and scenes from the film. Though ostensibly in high definition, this looks like an upscale.


• Rob Brown: Found (HD; 11:59) is an appealing introduction to the actor. This is another one that looks like it was sourced from older standard definition video.


• Finding Forrester Choir Scenes - Lean on Me / Lacrimosa (HD; 7:43)


• Isolated Music and Effects Track is in LPCM 2.0 and can be accessed under the Setup Menu.

Finding Forrester Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In my now long ago Good Will Hunting Blu-ray review, I mentioned how obviously adept Gus Van Sant was with actors, and he certainly proved it again with Finding Forrester, but there was a time when he was relatively low on the production crew chain. I evidently worked with Van Sant decades ago, but hilariously didn't know it at the time, when I was hired to score the pilot for a proposed CBS series called Pillars of Portland. I may have known about the following connection at the time, but later forgot. But then I was reminded years later, when local paper Willamette Week did a retrospective on the pilot, calling it the Portlandia of its day (which it most certainly was not), and mentioned that Van Sant had been a grip on the production. ( Pillars of Portland was culled from some articles in Willamette Week written by another notable Portland writer, Larry Colton, the ex- major league baseball player who also happened to be Hedy Lamarr's former son-in-law.) But the real bragging familial bragging rights vis a vis this particular film belong to my wife, who was a top news anchor in Portland for years, but who dropped out of broadcasting when our sons were born. One day out of the blue she got a call from Mike Rich, then enjoying considerable renown for this film, who came to our house and sat in our kitchen and pitched a job at KINK to my wife, which she turned down since it required getting up at the veritable crack of dawn to be on air starting at six in the morning. Mike was an affable presence, seemingly unaffected by his sudden fame, and in fact if I recall correctly he commented that he was going through some hassles with the screenplay for what ultimately became Miracle. All of the above may have made me a less than objective analyst of this film, but its emotional power will probably be felt by most viewers whether or not they know about Mike and his Nicholl Fellowship winning screenplay. Technical merits are generally solid, and Finding Forrester comes Recommended.