What’s happened to Matthew Broderick? Why is he stuck in the rut of playing joyless schnooks, like his character in the new film, “Wonderful World”?

I thought of this after I happened to catch “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” on TV recently, for the first time in ages. In that John Hughes film, Broderick seemed to be the life force incarnate: happy, mischievous, audacious, subversive yet sweet.

But in a string of films in recent years, Broderick has shrunk himself to a cowering kernel of humanity: playing characters defeated by life before they get out of bed in the morning. (More…)