With Honors
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| With Honors | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Alek Keshishian |
| Produced by | Peter Guber, Jon Peters, Amy Robinson, Paula Weinstein |
| Written by | William Mastrosimone |
| Starring | Joe Pesci, Brendan Fraser, Moira Kelly, Patrick Dempsey, Josh Hamilton,, Gore Vidal, |
| Music by | Patrick Leonard |
| Distributed by | Warner Brothers |
| Release date(s) | April 29, 1994 |
| Running time | 103 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
With Honors (1994) is a comedy-drama starring Joe Pesci and Brendan Fraser. The film was directed by Alek Keshishian who has more famously directed music videos for Madonna and Bobby Brown.
The film touches on comedy, drama, and politics. Although the film was released in 1994, many of the political jokes and quotes in the film were directed towards to Ronald Reagan and his presidency between the years of 1980 and 1988.
The film was released in April of 1994 and went on to gross over twenty million dollars at the box office. Madonna sang the theme to the movie, which was titled "I'll Remember", and actually received nominations from the Golden Globes, Grammys, and MTV Movie Awards but she failed to win any of the awards.
The film was shot at various locations in Massachusetts, Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota, including the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The exterior of Winthrop House appears; however, the interiors pictured are not that of actual Harvard houses. In fact, the last scene of the movie is shot at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and not at Harvard. The buildings and surroundings were dressed up to look as if it were Harvard and many of the people in the final scene are Illinois students. One point of interest is that the graduation scene was shot while the local climate in Illinois had not allowed for the trees to bloom leaves and so artificial branches and leaves were stapled on. All of the outdoor shots of Harvard's Widener Library had the University of Minnesota's Northrop Auditorium in that role.
[edit] Synopsis
After a hard drive crash, Montgomery (Monty) Kessler is left with only one, physical copy of his senior thesis. While walking with roommate Courtney Blumenthal to make a duplicate, Kessler accidentally drops the thesis into the basement of Widener Library, and Simon Wilder, who has been living there undetected, finds it. Kessler and Wilder strike a deal that Kessler must do one thing for him and he, in return, gets one page of his thesis. At first, he is irritating to Kessler and the other roommates, but they begin to lighten up and learn from Wilder many lessons they will take with them for the rest of their lives.
[edit] Characters
Simon Wilder (Joe Pesci): A homeless man that is living in the boiler room of the library on Harvard's campus. In his past, he worked as a merchant marine before asbestos forced him to quit. He also abandoned his family, probably around the same time he started working in the shipyards. Through the trials and tribulations of his life he has become educated on many subjects. He ends up passing this knowledge on to the people he meets in his last days.
Montgomery 'Monty' Kessler (Brendan Fraser): The protagonist of the movie. A brilliant, albeit cynical, young man that has gotten himself into Havard without any money ties and is about to graduate as a political science student with honors if he can put the finishing touches on his senior thesis. He is rather bitter because of his father's abandonment of him at a young age. His ideas and his thesis all change once he meets and gets to know Simon Wilder.
Courtney Blumenthal (Moira Kelly): The only female roommate of the house. She is not only a roommate but a friend to those who inhabit the house as well. She is a very beautiful young woman who just uses her male companion, nicknamed "The Face", for sex. Kessler has been longing to end his platonic friendship with her and begin a romantic relationship, which ends up happening during the movie.
Everett Calloway (Patrick Dempsey): One of the four roommates of the house. He is a disc jockey for the radio station at Harvard. He is one of the first of the roommates to warm up to Simon as he offers him wine if Simon can fix his van.
Jeffrey Hawks (Josh Hamilton): The neurotic and sissified roommate who is studying to be a gynecologist. He is the roommate that is staunchly against Simon Wilder living in the apartment or on the property. He eventually comes around during the movie as well.
Professor Pitkannan (Gore Vidal): He is the antagonist of the film. He is described as a pessimist. He is the professor Monty must satisfy in order to graduate with honors. He gets into a very heated debated over the Constitution with Simon Wilder during a class in which, according to the class reaction, Wilder wins. This is probably the most memorable scene from the movie as well.
Simon Wilder: Which door do I leave from?
Professor Pitkannan: At Harvard we don't end our sentences with prepositions.
Simon Wilder: Okay. Which door do I leave from, asshole?
