blog #8 - Finding Forrester

“Finding Forrester” is a movie describing a friendship between a high school student Jamal Wallace and a famous writer William Forrester.  Jamal is a talented with writing and basketball in a high school.  One day, he found someone was watching him and his friends from the top of the building though the window.  Jamal’s friends challenged Jamal to intrude his house and Jamal accepted the challenge.  However, he left his bag in William’s room and when Jamal got his bag, he found out the William corrected all of his writing.  After this event, they became close and William taught how to write a paper.  As they got closer, they went to baseball stadium and William started to talk about his family.  Once in the writing competition, Jamal used William’s private writing and he got involved in plagiarism.  They had many events; however, William forgave him eventually and restored their relationship.  After William’s death, Jamal received a letter and the key to get into his house.  In his house, Jamal found Forrester’s manuscript of second novel, called Sunset. 

                I enjoyed the movie “Finding Forrester” with confident acting of actors and actresses, and a good story line.  While I watching the movie, I was reminded of a movie called “Good Will Hunting”.  They both describe the deep friendship between an old man and a young guy.  As watching the movie, I thought Forrester is related to me when he was scared to go outside and had a severe anxiety attack.  In the movie, outside of his house is not comfortable to him and he was afraid to go to new world.  I was also afraid and scared of coming to new world which is America.  I did not like adapting to new environment and sometimes I felt frustrated.  I could fully understand when he had hard time with the crowd.  Personally, I really envy the deep and pure friendship between Jamal and William.  I want to have a mentor like William, who can advise and have a serious conversation with, in my life.  I think the most important theme in this movie is friendship between them.  Even though Jamal made a mistake which was using William’s writing without permission, they eventually restored their relationship.  I thought it was beautiful to forgive and go back to good relationship.  After watching this movie, I thought about plagiarism which Jamal was implicated and real friendship over gap of age between them.