Take Good Will Hunting out of Boston and transpose it to New York City and you have Finding Forrester. It's the story of Jamal Wallace (played by unknown Rob Brown) who despite growing up in the Bronx has a remarkable gift for writing which is discovered during his junior year of high school when his state test scores come back. He is taken to a top notch private prep school in Manhattan, where his English class is assigned to read a novel by William Forrester (played by Connery) who as it turns out lives in an apartment overlooking the basketball court where Jamal grew up. Incidentally, Forrester is praised for having written the best novel of the twentieth century but for some unknown reason has never written another. After a rough start, Jamal and William become buddies, each (of course) teaching the other a little bit about himself and his ability to write.

As usual, you get what you expect from Sean Connery. If you've seen enough of his films, you could probably write his dialogue yourself. Newcomer Rob Brown does a good job playing poor smart kid from the Bronx. Supporting actress (what-ever-happened-to) Anna Paquin plays Jamal's schoolmate and quasi-girlfriend. Her performance doesn't quite do it. She keeps popping up out of nowhere and you sort of get the impression that she watched the Natalie Portman film catalogue before acting in this film.

The story is unoriginal and totally predictable, but nicely told. If you want one of those "struggle turns to feel good" films, then this one is worth a rental.