Review of “With Honors,” Film, 1994. Directed by Alex Keshishian. Stars Brendan Fraser, Moira Kelly, & Joe Pesci. Warner Brothers Pictures.

The Harvard bum movie

This is the movie about the “Harvard Bum” Simon Wilder (Joe Pesci) who changes the lives of the four students who are busy doing their own thing when they bump into this homeless guy who is living in the boiler room of the library on campus.  Fraser and Kelly’s characters, plus Jeffrey (Josh Hamilton) and the fourth (Patrick Dempsey) learn how to deal with the “bum’s” interesting ways and idiosyncrasies.

Fraser drops his senior thesis down a grate leading to the boiler room.  The Pesci character grabs it, and he strikes a deal that he will give the thesis back—a page at a time—in exchange for various “things” he needs, like food.  Of course, the contact between the two men intensifies.  More things are needed, and the deadline for the thesis to be handed in approaches.  So the “bum” is around more and more.

One very real bargain arises and a higher price for one “thing” is negotiated between Fraser and Pesci when they are in the library reading and the homeless man realizes he is dirty.  He offers two pages for a bath, and Fraser accepts.  

Of the four roommates, “Jeffrey” is at first disgusted by the homeless man and afraid of having him in the house they are renting.  He is the stick-in-the-mud roommate.  He puts a little chain on his door to protect himself, saying he does not wish to be killed in his bed.  A roommate yells at him, “That’s the only place you are safe—in your bed.”  This is to imply he is generally in his bed all alone.

Jeffrey is particularly rude to the homeless man as he is around more, making the student uncomfortable.  Says the homeless guy to the student “You know why you hate me so much?  Cuz I look the way you feel.

While some reviewers have said the movie has a lot of obvious and foolish scenes—like the homeless man knowing poetry, having travelled a great deal, and being able to hold his own in a debate with a professor about the US Constitution—the movie is nonetheless spot on when it comes to the feelings of the characters.

Simon explains the US Constitution to the Harvard professor.

The young persons are somewhat reluctant at first to trust the homeless man, the homeless man envies the connections and comforts the students enjoy (they live indoors!), and the other characters on campus assume the homeless man is stupid or a lunatic and then are surprised when it turns out he is neither.

The homeless guy turns out to be a Renaissance man who loves Walt Whitman, knows how to cook, and loves a nice bottle of wine.  He also values the love and devotion of a good woman and the power of making a good deal and sticking to it.

The movie is, in fact, a tear jerker and it teaches us many, many important lessons about how to live, how to value others, and how to be original in our thoughts—and in our theses.  I plan to watch it again soon. 

I do not know how much of the movie was actually filmed at Harvard.  I have heard a lot of the scenes were filmed at the University of Illinois.  It would be interesting to see where some of the scenes were done.  The winter and Christmas motifs are important symbolically.

The house is a big messy space like many of us have lived in during college days or shortly thereafter.  It is a unifying and essential space in the film.  There is a large portrait of FDR over Fraser’s bed and I have a few ideas why that appears in the movie.  Many such meaningful or not scenes and props would be fun to discuss in a book club or movies club… someday when I have time to get people together and have one.

Is the movie realistic in terms of the homeless experience?  For an unhoused individual hiding out in a boiler room in the winter, yes.  His living in the van, almost getting thrown out of the library just for being homeless, and attacked as being a lazy drunk by the professor who winds up debating him, are all typical of the kinds of treatment of homeless persons.

The professor (Pitkannen) is played by none other than Gore Vidal!  It is terribly ironic that the class he is teaching is about US Government and the Constitution!  There are some more clever things going on in the movie.  Movie buffs and campus experts will see some entertaining tidbits. 

Advocates for the homeless will feel for—and applaud—the Harvard Bum.