Genius (2016)

Genius is a 2016 British-American biographical drama film directed by Michael Grandage and written by John Logan, based on the 1978 National Book Award-winner Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg. The film stars Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Dominic West, and Guy Pearce. It was selected to compete for the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival.^[3]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently has a rating of 51% based on 97 reviews and an average rating of 5.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Genius seeks to honor worthy subjects, yet never gets close enough to the titular quality to make watching worth the effort".^[7]

Among the British reviews of the film, The Guardian wrote, "Michael Grandage's debut film, on Thomas Wolfe and his literary editor Maxwell Perkins, is hammily acted, overstylised and lacking in subtlety",^[8] while The Independent wrote, "The acting, along with John Logan's script, belongs to the theatre".^[9] The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, had this to say about the film: "All the blaring trumpets and martinis the director can fling us as jazzy background don't save the film from being very unappealingly lit indeed—full of drab, grey interiors, it's halfway to monochrome."^[10]

Among the American reviews, meanwhile, Variety opined, "Though Michael Grandage's dull, dun-colored Genius makes every effort to credit the editor's role in shaping the century's great novels, it's nobody's idea of interesting to watch someone wield his red pencil over the pile of pages that would become Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel, even if the editor in question is the great Maxwell Perkins. While the talent involved should draw smarthouse crowds, the result has all the life of a flower pressed between Angel''s pages 87 years ago."^[11] The Hollywood Reporter was similarly unimpressed, writing, "The insurmountable problem, however, is that the story engages only late in the game, once Tom has betrayed his father figure by revising his previous acknowledgment of the role Max played in molding his genius. But perhaps due to the anesthetizing effect of most of what's come before, the central relationship lacks spark and the pathos remains muted. Even scenes that should burst with excitement, such as Tom loosening up sober Max in a Harlem jazz club, are like CPR on a lifeless body."^[12] The New York Times also found the film unsatisfactory, writing, "Genius is a dress-up box full of second- and third-hand notions. Set mainly in a picturesquely brown and smoky Manhattan in the 1930s, it gives the buddy-movie treatment to that wild-man novelist Thomas Wolfe and his buttoned-up red-penciler Maxwell Perkins."^[13] Rolling Stone had the same impression, writing, "You know the drill: Strong source material, in the form of A. Scott Berg's National Book Award-winning biography on Perkins, a top-notch screenwriter (John Logan) and a to-die-for A-list cast. Having all the right ingredients doesn't mean you can't royally screw up the recipe, however, and the missteps start coming fast and furious even before Law's manic-hillbilly act wears out its welcome.