By Matt Soergel
Florida Times-Union

Wonder Boys is a comedy involving a statuesque transvestite, a dead dog in a car trunk, Marilyn Monroe's wedding-day jacket, a big-haired man dubbed Vernon, a teenage cop, a vintage Ford Galaxie 500 convertible and a ''Thinking of You'' balloon on a stick.

But it's not what you might think.

Wonder Boys doesn't go for the big laughs, but takes its comic predicaments and gives them a droll, amused and fond going-over. There's even a melancholic edge to it, a considerable melancholic edge.

It's not that it marches to its own drummer; rather it meanders here and there to the eccentric rhythm of some loping Bob Dylan song (he's all over the soundtrack) that only it can hear.

It stars Michael Douglas - and it's a real pleasure to see him freed from that oily richguy persona of his. He's tremendously funny here, precisely because he's not trying at all to be funny. The most you'll get from him is self-aware exasperation.

And he's got a lot to be exasperated about.

He's Grady Tripp, a creativewriting teacher at a university in drizzly, snowy wintertime Pittsburgh. You can see he was once a dashing college-prof figure: horn-rimmed glasses and silvering, longish hair swept off a fine forehead.

But he's currently gone to seed: He's unshaven, wearing a wool cap and woman's bathrobe, limping and prone to dizzy spells, and smelling, no doubt, of stale pot smoke. (For much of his life, he's done a yeoman's effort to singlehandedly keep alive the underground agricultural economy of Humboldt County, Calif.)

Grady's first novel, The Arsonist's Daughter, won awards, but it's been seven years since then. And now his agent (Robert Downey Jr.) is in town, hungry for Grady's promised new novel (it's now at 2,611 pages, with no end in sight).

But Grady has to deal with several things this weekend, during a three-day literary event called WordFest.

His wife has left him that morning, the latest wife to do so.

He's got to make sense of a gloomy and talented student, a sophomore named James Leer (played by deadpan Tobey Maguire, continuing a string of fine performances), who's stirring up protective and competitive feelings in his professor.

There's Hannah Green (Katie Holmes), a luscious, smart and admiring student who's made it clear she's not immune to Grady's charm.

And then there's the university's chancellor, Sarah Gaskell (the terrific Frances McDormand), with whom he's been having a passionate affair. She has some big news for him.

All this leads to a wild three days of pot-smoking, drinking, writing, bonding, thievery and decision-making, as this aging wonder boy has to finally figure out what he's going to do with the rest of his life.

Director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) and screenwriter Steve Kloves have carefully adapted Michael Chabon's droll, melancholy and exceedingly well-written book.

They've taken his likable, imperfect characters and, helped by some excellent acting, translated them beautifully to the screen. There's no condescension in this movie; even a big literary snob who begins his speech this way - ''I . . . am a writer'' - isn't really made fun of.

Without being the least bit sappy, Wonder Boys is agreeable, warm and witty, a welcome refuge in this crummy season for movies.