How entertaining? ★☆☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 24 May 2016
A movie review of GENIUS. |
YouTube review:
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“My only job is to put good books into the hands of readers,” Max Perkins (Colin Firth)
If you are going to be bold enough to label your movie ‘Genius’, it better live up to the title. In case you hadn’t guessed from that opening salvo, the feature debut from theatre director Michael Grandage falls far short. When you have the likes of AMADEUS and LOVE & MERCY deftly showcasing the exceptional, the benchmarks have been loftily set. Likewise, A BEAUTIFUL MIND and I SAW THE LIGHT are on the opposite end of the spectrum. GENIUS joins the latter, as a substandard pseudo-prestige awards-bait bromance.
If you are going to be bold enough to label your movie ‘Genius’, it better live up to the title. In case you hadn’t guessed from that opening salvo, the feature debut from theatre director Michael Grandage falls far short. When you have the likes of AMADEUS and LOVE & MERCY deftly showcasing the exceptional, the benchmarks have been loftily set. Likewise, A BEAUTIFUL MIND and I SAW THE LIGHT are on the opposite end of the spectrum. GENIUS joins the latter, as a substandard pseudo-prestige awards-bait bromance.
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The bromance is not of the Seth Rogen-James Franco PINEAPPLE EXPRESS-THIS IS THE END variety (unfortunately), GENIUS seems to think it is highbrow – but is far from it. Just because the plot is dealing with two supposed intellectual behemoths does not automatically make a project depicting them have the same weight. (Cerebral osmosis is not a thing, as far as one is aware.) One says supposed intellectual behemoths, because unless you know the background to the protagonists there is little evidence provided. Mutual vocal pats on the back do not count.
It is 1929 and Max Perkins is an editor at Charles Scribner’s & Sons, the celebrated New York publishing house behind Hemingway and Fitzgerald. A large manuscript from unknown writer Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law) lands on Perkins’ desk. The latter recognises talent, and that is the spark launching a professional and personal bond filling the runtime. “Till I met you, I never had a friend,” Wolfe.
They are poles apart: Firth plays his usual very watchable buttoned down dignity, contrasted by Law’s annoying exuberance. Opposites attract, supposedly. Here, the chemistry of camaraderie is forced. What has happened to writer John Logan? Involved in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY, GLADIATOR, THE AVIATOR and RANGO, he has demonstrated real skill. Lately though, TV show ‘Penny Dreadful’, SPECTRE and now GENIUS, are pretty lacklustre.
Making matters worse are the malnourished female supporting parts. Paramour to Wolfe Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman) and wife to Perkins, Louise Saunders (Laura Linney), are there to comment on familial neglect subsumed to the needs/desires of work. GENIUS is no Michael Mann film, commenting on men’s inexorable relationship with their professions. Add in groan-some cameos, Ernest Hemingway (Dominic West) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce), and we get an almost laughable literary AVENGERS.
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