Wonder Boys builds slowly. It doesn't really have a foundation to build on; there's no central plot through which all the characters eventually weave. The movie builds on itself, each piece stacking on top of the pieces presented before it, like a reverse cinematic Jenga. Miraculously, the tower never topples, and what could have been an ugly pile is actually a carefully-constructed comedy about writing, self-understanding and love. (Ain't they all, though?)

Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is an English professor at a small university who's over 2000 pages and seven years into his second book. His first book was a huge hit and he's feeling a constant yet nearly undetectable pressure to finish the book. Unfortunately, he can't find the ending. James Leer (Tobey Maguire) is one of his students, a dark yet gifted writer who's obsessed with Hollywood suicides, and Hannah Green (Katie Holmes) is another of his students, only she's obsessed with Grady. Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand) is also nursing a minor Grady obsession; she's the chancellor of the university, she's been having an affair with Grady and she's pregnant with his baby. Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey, Jr.) is Grady's editor and has come to town for Word Fest, a yearly writers' conference. He's also there to harass Grady about the book.

It's clear that all these characters revolve around Grady; the story's told from his point-of-view. But it's not just his story. He changes based on his experiences over the Word Fest weekend, but so does James, and Hannah, and even Terry Crabtree, the shallow editor. Each character grows thanks to the events in the film, and screenwriter Steven Kloves does a tremendous job of charting all that growth carefully and with nuance. Working from Michael Chabon's novel, he takes his time with these characters. You get your bearings slowly, but you do get them. Once you have them, every event is hilarious or heartbreaking or a keen mix of both, because you know these people.

Roger Ebert was right to call Boys "an unsprung screwball comedy, slowed down to real-life speed." Crazy things happen to these characters, but they always register; they have impact and repercussions, beyond the obvious one-liners. The gentle pacing also makes these crazy events much funnier than if they'd taken place in your average screwball comedy. Watching the reactions of the characters, especially Grady, as they quietly take in the insanity around them is gutbustingly funny. You don't race by them at breakneck speed to get to the next joke. They all sink in slowly.

Michael Douglas gives one of his best performances in years as Grady Tripp. He wears this character with the same casual comfort that Grady wears his beaten pink bathrobe. He absorbs everything, it flows through his drug-addled brain and then he acts. It's hard to tell if it's the pot or the situations that make him so cautious, but that cautiousness--what will be revealed eventually as a failure to make choices--informs everything he does. It's perhaps ironic that the performance of a choiceless character should stem from so many brilliant acting choices on the part of Douglas. It's an actively brilliant study in passive reaction.

Other actors are tremendous too--Holmes is especially revealing in a role that moves her light years from her "oh, shucks" charm as Joey Potter on Dawson's Creek--but this is Douglas' film. As Grady Tripp, he's the centerpiece around which the film's events happen. He connects all these characters and their stories are all changed thanks to his influence.

In the keynote address of Word Fest, star writer Q (Rip Torn) reveals to a packed auditorium his belief that everyone has a story. Every person has one great story in them, and it's usually their own. James Leer giggles during that moment, and yet that nugget is justified as a truism by the film's end. Every character in Wonder Boys has their story, and they all weave around Grady Tripp. They unpeel slowly, like the layers of an onion, and as they reveal they build into an intricate whole. It's measured filmmaking, full of choices that are brilliant but never seem conscious, making for an effortless film.