Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2000: Sean Connery in Finding Forrester

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Sean Connery did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying William Forrester in Finding Forrester. 

Finding Forrester is perhaps an overly straight forward, though wholly good film, about an aspiring athlete/writer Jamal (Rob Brown), chancing upon a reclusive though extremely famed writer with whom he strikes up an unlikely mentor-ship/friendship. 

Sean Connery's last decade of his active career is easily his least impressive as a performer. This decade was marked most frequently as a somewhat self-indulgent performer. After his Oscar win many of his performances suggested an actor who had nothing left to prove critically or commercially, so he just kind of coasted on his general charisma while calling it a day. This was certainly the case for his final performance in the properly maligned League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but if Connery had ended his career one film earlier, he would've exited the profession on a performance he bothered to actually try. That being this film in Gus Van Sant's spiritual followup to Good Will Hunting, a film also about an unexpected young genius finding guidance via a bearded star, though to be fair there's more of a back and forth here, and Connery was bearded at most times post Bond. Anyway though, Connery plays here outside of the aged badass and instead plays a renowned literary figure, modeled on JD Salinger by being a recluse, having one age defining novel, and also an interest in baseball evidently. Connery's own presence is used well in the introduction of his Forrester, by basically an importance to character is naturally enforced because, well, it is Sean Connery, and he naturally makes an impact. 

Connery is playing into a type initially as the cold man with a past, though what I like here is that actually Connery nor the film dwell on this too much. We get a bit of exasperation from the aged man, and Connery delivers this well. He brings much more of an edge than we got in a lot of his 90's work, where he was often so Connery, it was a problem. That presence of his is here, but in his initial reaction towards Jamal, when he trespassed on him based on basically a dare, Connery's intensity actually reveals character and he's not just coasting on his remarkable presence as a performer. Honestly before watching the film I had imagined a little bit in my head the lazy version of this performance by Connery himself, this just as the exasperated old man who is harsh yet secretly caring. I think what I found special here then is one being the moments of exasperation Connery doesn't sugarcoat it creating a real sense of the bitterness in the man in these moments. What is even more surprising though is how much of this performance isn't that coldness, and really we get a genuinely warm performance from Connery. This in the moment of Forrester saying his limits, which essentially Jamal needs to largely not ask him about his reclusiveness, Connery shows an honest eagerness for connection with the young man. This as his moments of teaching are with enthusiasm and in his eyes there is the sense of the old spirit of the writer being encouraged by this young man's own talents. I mean the fact that Connery's delivery of "You're the man now, dog!", doesn't come off as ridiculous is a testament to the devotion he brings here, and makes just this natural moment of Forrester being playful with Jamal.

Connery earns the warmth here by portraying each moment of this as really this excitement within the act of teaching, and the enjoyment really of the life behind writing. Connery finds a nice balance within his delivery of Forrester's wisdom that brings both a sense of the fun Forrester has with imparting wisdom, while also the proper conviction to convey such a form of wisdom. Connery devotes himself here in a way that feels like prime Connery and through his chemistry with Brown creates a genuinely moving and endearing friendship/mentorship at the center of the film. There is that entertaining quality in the unlikely pair, but they are also wholly believable all the same. This to the point when Forrester pours out his trauma to Jamal, essentially his reclusive life is from the death of his brother, it feels like a natural progression and is helped all the more by Connery's delivery of the moment. He brings a natural vulnerability here that speaks to Connery's best work. He isn't James Bond in this moment, or some variation of the character, he's Forrester the writer hurt by his seeming failures. This as Connery conjures a genuine sense of the history in his quiet delivery of the monologue. A monologue that he paints not with big melodrama, but a quiet sense of a buried pain that has left the man anchored to such a singular existence. And again as much as this isn't a great film, partially through the plot progression that makes things a little too clean, Connery is always good. This being most notable in the film's somewhat contrived climax where Forrester needs to come out of his home to deliver a dramatic speech to save Jamal from a jealous college professor (F. Murray Abraham). Connery though gives credence to the situation through his performance. What I like so much about the scene is that Connery doesn't over play it, or just play it as pure passion, as he easily could've. Rather he stays with the character of recluse, giving some awkwardness to the speech at points, almost stumbling in moments, and bringing a degree of shyness befitting a confident man, but a confident man who has spent years speaking to few people. He plays the moment as William Forrester, not as Sean Connery. And in that sense this is that performance, that should've been his swan song, as it features Connery giving a truly devoted turn here one last time, one that speaks to his strengths as a star presence, but also his strengths as an actor.

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