Tripp is observed in Chabon's reasonably short novel with dry humor and sly wit as a man who--like so many other writers (Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer)--is going downhill, though in his case his decline is not only a professional one. Having scored an award from PEN just seven years earlier, he has not published another work. As he is on the 2,000th-odd page of a humongous piece of fiction, another scribe on campus nicknamed Q (Rip Torn) has knocked out yet another book, as he has been doing regularly every 18 months. Why the writer's block? Something is happening psychologically to trip him up. He has regular fits, sometimes even falling on the floor in a faint. Marijuana is his crutch and when he pops codeine pills after being bitten around the ankle by a big blind dog, we suspect he uses them for other than medicinal purposes as well.

Hanson's film is not about the profession of writing, however, but about the relationships of a wonder boy, a guy who will prove that you're never too old to grow up. His epiphanies occur during a week that publishers are on campus to look at and perhaps buy some of the output of both faculty and students and, in fact, Tripp's own publisher, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.) has joined him and has also met with a suicidal, compulsive liar who is in Tripp's class. The depressive student, James Teer, is played with awesome veracity by the highly talented Tobey Maguire ("The Cider House Rules"), this time as a young man who is the professor's most promising student and as the publisher's promising sexual attachment for the weekend.

"Wonder Boys," takes place during the time that its principal character is in a funk because his wife had just left him, a student with a crush (Hannah, played by Katie Holmes) is coming on to him, and he is looking to strengthen his bond with his mistress, Sara (Frances McDormand), who is the chancellor and the wife of the English chairman. Events which are to shake him out of his long-term funk occur in just a few days: 1) Young James has shot the English chairman's blind dog, allegedly to defend the professor who has been attacked by the big hound; 2) Sara has announced that she is pregnant from Tripp and is determined to make a decision about the baby within her; 3) James has stolen Marilyn Monroe's coat, which she had worn to her wedding with Joe D.

Some incidents are wacky, some are serious. The movie's most notable attribute is its pacing. Curtis Hanson, known for his ability to move around a multiplicity of characters in his "L.A. Confidential," refuses to appeal to a potentially broad audience. He keeps the plot moving along at his own lingering velocity, thereby avoiding making a Buston-Keaton style picture out of the zaniness. He hints at a possible affair between student Hannah and Tripp but keeps the two apart throughout. He has us wondering how Tripp's affiliation with Sara will turn out, given the humorlessness of Sara's husband who is Tripp's overseer.

All this is commendable. Unfortunately what should have been a story well told to an appreciative audience of indie- lovers who also adore their indies to be framed with a commercial-sized budget is simply murky, torpid, and confused. The chemistry between the chancellor and the professor is missing: we miss any feeling that something is at stake. Tripp's life has been on hold for so long that he appears to have lost real desire to make changes, to do something for himself that could alter his listlessness. Yet the film is cast with awe-inspiring faculty. Douglas, wonderful as the overly calm executive in "The Game" who is challenged by life-threatening risk; super as a the high- powered broker in "Wall Street" who knows that greed is good; is simply majestic this time in his first role with real comedic undertones. With long hair, scruffy beard, and overbearing glasses, he meanders through his role with absolute sincerity. He is a man with whom many others his age could identify. Tobey Maguire is the metaphoric young and bright depressive whose stories might make others in his class want to kill themselves and he too engages in activities on that fateful weekend that might make genuine corrections in his life. Robert Downey Jr. saves an otherwise lackadaisical film with his unique brand of wily, comic acting in a film that looks more like an notion than a well thought-out comedy-drama.