In the year 2000 The film Finding Forrester was released by Columbia Pictures Productions. It became a grossing film that earned $43 million dollars and 7.3 out of 10 stars on IMDb, but why? Why is this movie so popular and seen as a cult classic?

The story starts off as a young African American boy named ‘Jamal’ (portrayed Rob Brown) by from the Bronx who has a passion for basketball and secretly has a passion for writing. Jamal and his friends one night dare each other to climb up the emergency stairs into an apartment of a man who has been watching them play basketball. Jamal is the only one willing to take the challenge so he climbs up the latter, but them quickly gets scared off by the old (portrayed by Sean Connery) man and drops his backpack on accident.

Jamal gets his backpack back from the old man and then opens his journal to write and then discovers the old man critiqued all his writing. Jamal then goes to the apartment again to ask why the old man did it and if he could help Jamal in his writing more. The old man at first has a bad attitude and tells Jamal to go away and not to break into his apartment again. Jamal does not give up and comes back the next day to slip a letter under the old man’s door. Jamal then goes to the school the next day and is accepted to a private school because of his english and writing scores. In this school they start reading a novel by an author named William Forrester. Jamal recognizes William Forrester as being the old man from the apartment so he goes back and asks the old man if it was him. The old man has a bitter reaction and tells Jamal to never speak of it and to just write and not ask any questions about family life. Jamal and William soon create a friendship and help each other with their struggles. Then when Jamal gets in trouble at school for “plagiarizing” he  defends himself and gets kicked out class by the professor (portrayed by F. Murray Abraham). Jamal then feels horrible and debates leaving the private school in upstate michigan for his old school in the Bronx. He even lost the basketball game for his school so he decides to go to the library and stay up writing and then addresses it for William and goes to sleep. Jamal’s older brother Terrell (portrayed by Busta Rhymes) takes the letter and gives it to William. The next day at school William shows up and reads the letter to the class and everyone praises him for what good work he did but then he stops then and says Jamal wrote it, then while everyone is dumbfounded, Jamal is accepted back into the class and decides to stay at the school. After class William tells Jamal he decided to go back to Scotland and bikes away. The next year Jamal finds out William has passed away and that he inherited his house, so Jamal and his family move in and live happily ever after. I believe this movie gives a great message of friendship and defending yourself. In the movie Finding Forrester you get a great sense of never giving up and being yourself and I believe that is an important message for people to listen to. I would rate this movie 8/10 stars since I thoroughly enjoyed it and will watch it again.