Wonder Boys (2000)

Google: “A college professor tries to overcome his writer's block and finish his novel while dealing with divorce, his affair with the chancellor's wife, a thieving student and his expectant publisher.”

The disheveled Michael Douglas is excellent in the main part, and his mid-life crisis is highly watchable. I wasn’t too keen on the queasy blend of comedy and drama, which sometimes feels awkward. The presence of a dank Tobey Maguire doesn't help.

The soundtrack is for men of “a certain age”: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Van Morrison all feature. 

Directed by Curtis Hanson and adapted from the 1995 novel by Michael Chabon, this is a celebrated film that doesn't quite live up to expectations.

The Ice Storm (1997)

Superb drama directed by Ang Lee and adapted from Rick Moody’s novel. It details the interwoven fortunes of two neighbouring families in Connecticut across the Thanksgiving weekend of 1973. They are members of the wealthy middle-class, with designer homes and seemingly everything they could wish for, but somehow they have lost their way.

The cast is superb. Kevin Kline plays Ben Hood, a father of two who’s having an affair with his friend and neighbour’s wife (Sigourney Weaver). Bored and restless, the two couples have troubled children too – perhaps unsurprisingly. Everything comes to a head on one dramatic, frozen night, as the fractures in their marriages and issues relating to the children’s insecurities seem to point towards a horrifying and inevitable conclusion.

It’s harrowing stuff – more so than I remembered from seeing it at the cinema in 1997. 

Another disturbing thought: in 2021 we are as far from 1997 as 1997 was from 1973.