Wonder Boys is about the craft of writing. The characters feel like real people, exploring themes most of us can relate to.

Michael Douglas plays an unkempt washout college professor who just can't finish his next book.

Here's a few topics and themes the movie touches on:

His wife left him, a pregnant mistress, a suicidal student, a seductive student, the corpse of a dog, and a jacket that belonged to Marilyn Monroe.

Put this and much, much more together and it makes for an intelligent, sophisticated, humorous movie.

Poor Grady Tripp--his wife has left him, his married girlfriend is pregnant, and, if that's not enough, he has to juggle his visiting editor, a suicidal student, and the corpse of a dog. And that's just today's problems!

Michael Douglas plays an English professor whose entire life is turned upside-down in this off-kilter comedy directed by L.A. Confidential's Curtis Hanson.

Funny, strange, with solid performances all around.

Wonder Boys is a picture about a writer struggling to finish a novel. The character never stops insisting that he is a good writer.

I wasn't convinced that the star can really write or that he's writing something worth reading. He seems like a bad writer, a pampered, humored, aging adolescent, sitting in front of his typewriter, in his bathrobe, getting stoned.

The romantic union is a grand test on the star's maturity in this film, but was so thinly developed that the issue (which was a baby) remains almost entirely abstract, a disappointment in my view.

In the end, it's no wonder that the movie tries to make nice with its characters and fashion a deep message from a trivial story. The results are emotionally dishonest.