After his previous success, he now refuses to face the challenge of living up to himself. When the movie begins, Grady Tripp is having one of his worst days ever. It's a condition he's been putting up with for several months, but he refuses to see a doctor. For example, when they sneak upstairs at the chancellor's mansion so that Grady can show James a private collection of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio memorabilia, they become trapped by a blind pit bull that hates Grady. The film is structured as a picaresque odyssey of self-discovery.
Plot exists only in the loosest sense.
The closest we get to a traditional plot is the conflict over the beat-up old Buick that Grady drives. However, this plot thread is handled with a delightful sense of the absurd. This is one of the most convincing portraits of academia ever captured on film. It's also the kind of movie that feels like literature because the emphasis is almost completely on the inner lives of the characters. So Wonder Boys builds its impetus almost entirely from its quirky characters.