Genius

— I thought this was a fascinating film (DVD), but I do seem to like author or artist biopics. This one was particularly good because I sometimes have trouble fully identifying with artist characters but I had no trouble identifying with Colin Firth’s Scribner’s editor (Max Perkins) character. Of course, the demons and extremes of the artist and their issues in dealing with fame were front and center, particularly in Jude Law’s Tom Wolfe, but also in the Hemingway and Fitzgerald characters. Jude Law, by the way, with all his bluster, bigger-than-life, crazed, and articulate fervor, was up to the task of playing opposite Firth‘s carefully reserved, strong, intelligent, and warm Max. For that matter, to have Nicole Kidman and Laura Linney playing the under-appreciated women went a long way toward showing how relationships used to feed genius and makes you wonder how that’s changed as women have become accepted as valuable artists in their own right. Poor Zelda, whose life was so exuberant and worthy of its own biography, is only a bit part in this film—just one more reminder of the price of good editing. It certainly gets you thinking about genius and the degree to which an editor affects a work. I’d recommend this if you have any interest such things, or maybe even if you just like Firth and Law.

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[2016. 104 min. Directed by Michael Grandage. Starring Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Guy Pearce, and Dominic West.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/movies/review-genius-puts-max-perkins-and-thomas-wolfe-in-a-literary-bromance.html