Finding Forrester

Finding Forrester is a 2000 American drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Mike Rich.

In the film, a black teenager, Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown), is invited to attend a prestigious private high school.

By chance, Jamal befriends a reclusive writer, William Forrester (Sean Connery), through whom he refines his talent for writing and comes to terms with his identity.

Anna Paquin, F. Murray Abraham, Michael Pitt, Glenn Fitzgerald, April Grace, Busta Rhymes, and Charles Bernstein star in supporting roles.

[5] In the Bronx, sixteen-year-old Jamal Wallace downplays his potential as a gifted student, preferring to play basketball with his friends.

Jamal asks him to read more of his writing, but Forrester angrily tells him to begin with 5,000 words on why he should "stay the fuck out of my home."

Due to his high test scores, Jamal is offered a full academic scholarship and transfers to Mailor-Callow, a prestigious Manhattan private school, with the understanding that he will join the basketball team.

Running out of time to enter the school's essay competition, Jamal submits one of Forrester's exercises to the contest, and humiliates Crawford during class.

The school assures Jamal that the plagiarism charges will be dropped if he wins the state basketball tournament, but he misses the final free throws, costing them the championship.

Jamal is also given the manuscript of Forrester's second novel, for which he is expected to write the foreword, and his old friends comfort him by inviting him to play a basketball game.

[10] Rob Brown auditioned for the film, hoping to make enough money to pay his $300 cell phone bill.

[17][18][19] "Coffaro's Theme" was originally composed as part of the soundtrack of a successful Italian movie, La scuola.

The song "Gassenhauer", from Schulwerk by Carl Orff and arranged and produced by Bill Brown is a notable track that appears in the actual film but was not included on the soundtrack.