[yasr_overall_rating]
A chronicle of Max Perkins’s time as the book editor at Scribner, where he oversaw works by Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
At times it is justified to raise an eyebrow when all seems too perfect. My eyebrow raised when glancing at the phenomenal cast, Colin Firth, Jude Law, Laura Linney, Nicole Kidman, Guy Pearce, & Dominic West, in Michael Grandage’s literary drama “Genius.” I thought to myself, “What is this cast a band aid for?” I wanted to fall in love with “Genius,” to feel inspired, but the grand love affair was never meant to be. A spark that flickered was snuffed out quickly once Jude Law opened his mouth. A grandiose persona, a poet’s anima, his very life-force, cannot be captured by an actor unless it is felt deeply, cutting him to the bone, possessing him. Thomas Wolfe’s works may forever be shelved away, remaining only glorious in a fixed point of time, due to the mere masquerading present in Grandage’s, “Genius.”
“Genius,” is not a biopic about Thomas Wolfe, but rather focuses on the relationship between Wolfe and the editor that took him on when no one else dared, Maxwell Perkins (Colin Firth), and the process of molding a novelist with a poet’s soul and propensity to consume with great appetite all the pleasures of the flesh. They are a perfect match of opposites; a savant of prose, wild and excessive, and a man of stoic puritan stock, a genius in his own right, who slays the excess down to the hilt. While Perkins attends to the beast that is Wolfe’s writing, he does not attempt to tame the man himself but looks on with quiet fascination as Wolfe goes about gallivanting extravagantly in seedy jazz clubs and engaging in a taxing love affair with married woman, and proclaimed muse, Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman).
This is a film that has all the basic markers of what usually signifies potential greatness but it’s a trick, all smoke and mirrors. You are transported to an old world New York, dark and wet. It is as if color is unfathomable, the muted tones conceal the vibrancy, the decadence teeming beneath the surface. At first you feel yourself falling in love with the moody design but then staleness hits you, and you realize you want to clamor out of the theater for fresh air. You’re angry that you realize you’re bored. You are watching a bunch of Pinocchios, wooden and obvious in their movements, ignorant of subtlety, and you can only pray some realness strikes them soon.
Jude Law’s Carolina drawl is agitating and he never shuts up. Firth’s power of emotion is meant to be felt through movement, the subtle twinges of approval, weight, or thoughtfulness carried on his face. But there is no connection. There is no chemistry, just two actors in a room fulfilling their lines. Surprisingly I found Nicole Kidman’s performance as a lover and muse dismantled appealing. She is brutal, carrying a scorpion’s sting. But she is not enough. “Genius,” is not enough. It fails to carry the weight that it should and its message is unclear. I do not know whether to admire the ingenuity of an editor that brought “good books” to the public or lament a fallen novelist who was groomed for everlasting greatness.
In select theaters today
