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Review: ‘Genius’ Puts Max Perkins and Thomas Wolfe in a Literary Bromance

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By A.O. Scott

• June 9, 2016

Ostensibly a tale of heroic literary creation — of the volatile collaboration between an undisciplined author and his discerning editor — “ Genius ” is a dress-up box full of second- and thirdhand 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.

At the time, it was Wolfe who laid windy claim to the titular epithet, but history has been kinder to Perkins. A. Scott Berg’s Perkins biography , which the film cites as its source, is subtitled “Editor of Genius,” and the double meaning is clear enough. From his desk at Scribner’s , Perkins helped shape the prose of, among others, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and in the process secured his own share of literary greatness. Those guys show up briefly onscreen, impersonated by Guy Pearce (Fitzgerald) and Dominic West (Papa). Poor Zelda (Vanessa Kirby) also has a moment, looking batty at the Perkinses’ dinner table in Connecticut.

But the focus is Max (Colin Firth) and Tom (Jude Law), a weary study in temperamental contrast. Tom blusters into Max’s office with a yawping Carolina drawl and a manuscript that has been rejected by nearly every other publishing house in New York. Max, whose fedora has apparently been sewn on to his head and whose mouth is set into his face like an em-dash, reads the thing on the train home. There, mildly annoyed by the boisterous play of his many daughters and the amateur theatricals of his wife (Laura Linney), he settles into a closet to continue the manly labor of editing.

The result is “ Look Homeward, Angel ,” a best seller and a magnet for critical acclaim at the time that survives mainly as a relic of bygone literary fashion. There is one scene in “Genius” that captures something of the work that went into transforming Wolfe’s graphomaniacal effusions into half-readable prose, as Tom and Max amble through the city paring down an overwritten passage sentence by sentence. The rest of the film, directed by Michael Grandage from a screenplay by John Logan, depicts creation via furious montage. Tom stands at the refrigerator scribbling. Max jabs and plucks at pages of typescript. Bourbon and martinis are consumed. Cigarettes are smoked. Women come and go.

Well, Mrs. Perkins mostly stays put, except when she takes the girls away on vacation. More mercurial is Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman), a married theatrical set designer who has adopted Tom as her protégé and appointed herself his muse. This makes her Max’s rival, and also the most interesting and unpredictable person in the movie, even though — or perhaps precisely because — it lacks the imagination to know quite what to do with her.

Instead, “Genius” sighs with palpable nostalgia for a supposed golden age of masculine artistic potency and paints the struggle for self-expression in familiar sentimental colors. For Tom, writing is the unbridled expression of the life force, something Mr. Law indicates by hollering and gesticulating and allowing a stray lock of hair to fall just so across his brow. Mr. Firth’s performance is equally broad, even though he’s supposed to be the more uptight partner in this bromance. He grimaces and sighs like a vaudeville Puritan.

But the actors can perhaps be forgiven, since they are continually pushed into scenes that seem designed to halt subtlety in its tracks. The most egregious of these — in which Tom drags Max to a sweaty nightclub in Harlem, pontificating on the spontaneous energies of jazz and boogieing with the working girls at the bar — adds a dash of racial condescension to the cocktail.

It’s dispiriting to see a movie about interesting real-life characters reduce them to clichés, making them less vivid, less fascinating, less charismatic than they must have been. (It’s also a bit disconcerting, though hardly surprising at this point, to see yet another movie with important figures in American history portrayed by British and Australian actors.) “Genius” is full of talk about art, life and greatness, but it’s only talk.

“Genius” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Cigarettes and other examples of old-fashioned naughtiness. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes.

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About 25 years ago I met a fine artist, a painter, on a train trip to visit a mutual friend. We discussed our respective professions/enthusiasms, and she told me that as a rule she hated movies about painters because they were almost uniformly false—to the point of being corny—in their depiction of the act of painting. One exception, she said, was the then-recent “Life Lessons,” the Martin-Scorsese-directed episode of the 1989 “ New York Stories ,” in which Nick Nolte played an abstract painter. That movie got it, she said. I was glad to hear it, as I enjoyed the movie too, but I also said that as someone who had little clue about how painting was actually accomplished, I could enjoy Vincente Minnelli ’s “Lust For Life” regardless.

Writers have less of a hard time with movies about writers, because the act of writing is something that’s somewhat pointless to depict visually, so you kind of can’t go wrong. But there’s also a kind of inherent futility in using a visual medium to convey the interior machinations of the creative act. It’s helpful, then, in concocting movies about writers, to choose or create writers who are oversized personalities, men and women who do a lot more than spend time hunched over a desk wrestling with their own thoughts. The movie “Genius,” directed by Michael Grandage from a script by John Logan , does not lack for those. The central figure, though, is not a writer but an editor, the real-life Maxwell Perkins, a man whose most pronounced eccentricity, it seems, involved almost never taking his hat off. “Genius” is the story of book man Perkins, friend and collaborator to the likes of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who play significant roles here, and the way Perkins took on and tamed the fiery poetic work of North-Carolina-born visionary (or blowhard, depending on which literary critic you consult) Thomas Wolfe.

Perkins is played with reserve, hidden warmth, and scrupulous intelligence by Colin Firth , while Wolfe’s role goes to Jude Law , who is more than well suited to declaim and thunder and be completely madly unreasonable in time-tested crazed-genius style. Perkins spends his days in the very woody offices of Scribner’s, red-penciling such future masterpieces as ”A Farewell To Arms.” In the evening he takes the train home to a handsome secluded home where wait his wife and five lovely, literate daughters. One day his office receives a ragged manuscript that’s more stack than sheaf. “O Lost,” it is titled, and the words that follow that title, about the “lost wandering lonely souls,” somehow grip the taciturn Perkins. When Wolfe drops in at Perkins’ office, the writer is so cluelessly effusive that Perkins can barely get a word in edgewise, not even to tell him that Scribner’s is accepting the oft-rejected novel. The movie then spends a little while simulating how writer and editor honed down the stack to create what would come to be called “Look Homeward, Angel.”

If you have any feel for writing, and I suppose if you particularly have any feel for Wolfe’s writing, you’ll find the exchanges between editor and author exhilarating. Logan’s script, based on A. Scott Berg’s biography of Perkins, is invested in the craft of words like few other movies nowadays, even those ostensibly about writers. And if you have no particular concern for writing, the emotional drama is not insignificant. Nicole Kidman plays Aline Bernstein, a married woman who’s Wolfe’s lover and unofficial patron, and her scorn upon seeing her place in Wolfe’s life become supplanted on account of Perkins’ presence commands attention. As for Perkins, Wolfe starts looking like the son he and wife Louise ( Laura Linney ) very clearly tried for but never had. As success goes to Wolfe’s head, though, Perkins gets inklings that he may have created an ego monster, while Wolfe himself insists that Perkins loosen up and follow him to the places where he finds “the dark rhythms that inspire me.” As for Hemingway ( Dominic West ) and Fitzgerald ( Guy Pearce ), they make their concern and/or disapproval known from the sidelines.

It could be that I see so many dumb movies these days that I’m inclined to cut a lot of slack for one of conspicuous intelligence, but I greatly enjoyed “Genius.” To the extent that it’s made me interested in checking out more Wolfe, who I’ve avoided like the plague since not enjoying his dialect short story “Only The Dead Know Brooklyn.”

I’m not the only one who was at least slightly taken aback, though, by a persistent quirk in the movie’s casting, which is that not one of the Lions of American Literature in this picture was played by, well, an American. Firth is British, Law is British, Dominic West is British, Guy Pearce is Australian and so is Nicole Kidman. “What about Zelda Fitzgerald, you sexist?” I can hear somebody saying. Well, yeah. She IS depicted in the movie also. By Vanessa Kirby . A British actor.

They all do their jobs pretty splendidly though so I can’t really complain. But I did notice. As well you might, too. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Genius (2016)

Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and suggestive content.

104 minutes

Colin Firth as Max Perkins

Jude Law as Thomas Wolfe

Nicole Kidman as Aline Bernstein

Laura Linney as Louise Saunders

Guy Pearce as F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dominic West as Ernest Hemingway

Vanessa Kirby as Zelda Fitzgerald

• Michael Grandage

Writer (based on the book by)

• A. Scott Berg

Cinematographer

• Chris Dickens

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Genius review – Colin Firth and Jude Law's literary bromance needs an edit

Michael Grandage’s debut film, on Thomas Wolfe and his literary editor Maxwell Perkins, is hammily acted, overstylised and lacking in subtlety

R ed pencils at the ready. This one needs a going over. Shot in musty sepia, dragged in and out of baffling slow motion, Genius is a story about editing that packs a lot of padding. The first film from theatre director Michael Grandage, it’s a biopic about literary editor Max Perkins and his client, Thomas Wolfe. It features a performance of vaudevillian gusto by Jude Law as the author. Colin Firth is – in his measured way – equally as hammy playing Perkins.

Unlike many writers, who have to dig for every word, Wolfe didn’t know when to stop. He had a wild talent that needed taming. Only Perkins, who had already honed the work of Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, understood how to subdue the author’s 5,000-page manuscripts into market-ready books. On the way to producing Look Homeward, Angel (1929) and Of Time and the River (1935), they argued over every syllable. Their tumultuous working relationship (Wolfe was insecure that his talent was worthless without Perkins) shrouded a friendship that was often – for Perkins’s wife (a nothing part for Laura Linney) and Wolfe’s lover, theatre designer Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman) – exclusionary.

Here they are – inspiration and its moderator – chipping away at the meaning of great art. Outside the window, depression-era New York falls to pieces. Perkins shapes the work of “an ugly lump of Carolina clay” (Wolfe’s words, or an approximation of them) into something beautiful, while Wolfe introduces the staid family man to the abandon of the jazz age. It all sounds extremely exciting, but through a combination of grating performances and unadventurous production design, Genius becomes a trundle.

Wolfe wanted to write America. His exotic ramblings about its rhythms and flows would go on to inspire the Beat generation. Yet it’s difficult to see how the vision presented here would inspire more than a pamphlet. Grandage’s New York is mostly the publisher’s offices, Wolfe’s apartment, and the Perkins suburban family home. There’s no sense of the excitement that sparked Wolfe’s imagination. In one scene, the duo stride up from the docks into New York’s bustle and hum. I swear I saw the green screen curtain the production crew had rigged, to give the small set a sense of grandeur, twitch in the breeze.

There would be nothing wrong with telling the story to scale, if Law’s performance didn’t trample over any sense of subtlety. His Wolfe is a table-slapping, foot-stamping, hell-dodging horn dog and the film can hardly hold him. He drags Perkins up to Harlem to introduce him to life. The jazz club is fairly swinging with hip cats and gorgeous harlots, all delighted to see these two white boys join in the fun. It’s like a Disneyland version of the era, with Firth and Law stuffed into the outsized costumes of literary greats.

Your ticket price includes a ride with Hemingway (Dominic West) and Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce), as well as ample time with Kidman’s viper-eyed take on Bernstein, who – with some justification – was jealous of Perkins for distracting Wolfe from her. Hemingway thinks Wolfe’s work is bullshit. Fitzgerald, blocked and desperate to write, just shelters himself and his fragile wife Zelda (Vanessa Kirby) from the verbal storm. As in Midnight in Paris, these titans don’t really carry any dramatic weight. They’re just here to show face, then fold back into the history books.

There’s been talk of Genius hacking its way into the running for next year’s Oscar race. I still wouldn’t put it past it. It taps into the legend of great art, upper-casing the personalities and trimming away the boring hard work. The platonic romance between Max and Tom shaped the books, but Genius doesn’t really explain the talents of either, it just relies on you to accept them. The ride ends, having taken an awful lot of time, and far too many words, to get there.

• Berlin film festival 2016
• Colin Firth
• Berlin film festival
• Drama films
• Nicole Kidman

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Genius seeks to honor worthy subjects, yet never gets close enough to the titular quality to make watching worth the effort.

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Michael Grandage

Colin Firth

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Film Review: ‘Genius’

Michael Grandage's homage to one of the great unsung heroes of American literature feels lifeless, despite its all-star cast.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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Of all the fruits of genius that exist in the world, writing is perhaps the least dramatic to depict onscreen. Where other movies give us mad painters splashing away at canvases or tortured mathematicians scribbling equations on window panes, literary biopics typically fall back on lonely men seated at their desks, wresting sheets of paper from a typewriter, only to crumple each one up and begin again. But great writing isn’t an entirely solitary process, and 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.

Over the course of his nearly-four-decade career with Charles Scriber’s Sons, Perkins (played by Colin Firth ) fought hard to bring the best works of Wolfe ( Jude Law ), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) and Ernest Hemingway (Dominic West) to the general public. Judging by the cast of “Genius,” one might never guess that these literary figures were in fact Americans, as Grandage (that dare-we-say genius of the London stage) has loaded his big-screen debut with the finest British and Australian stars of the Miramax generation, including a reunion of “Cold Mountain” lovers Law and Nicole Kidman , who plays Wolfe’s patron, Aline Bernstein.

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Because the actual business of editing — during which Perkins so casually marks up a Hemingway manuscript whose every word might be considered sacred today — can only be expected to hold our interest in brief intervals, Logan’s script focuses on the interpersonal dynamic between this literary gatekeeper and his greatest discovery. (Both Fitzgerald and Faulkner had been published before, whereas Wolfe, who’d been rejected by every company in town, was losing faith that his words “were worth a dime.”)

According to A. Scott Berg’s biography, “Max Perkins: Editor of Genius,” upon which the movie is based, Perkins wasn’t entirely the musty, moth-eaten figure the dubiously accented Firth makes him out to be here. (The actor is either wearing false teeth, choking on a cracker or both.) Perkins was a fighter who put his own reputation on the line for the talents he believed in, and none would have demanded more defending than Wolfe, whose 1,000-page, single-spaced, typewritten first manuscript begins mid-sentence and unfurls in what appears to be a series of endless paragraphs. But gosh darn it, the thing sure does make Perkins’ eyes moisten, and together, they bludgeon it into one of Scriber’s unlikeliest bestsellers, with nary a note of skepticism from the editor’s superiors.

The next book, which Wolfe hand-delivers in a series of crates, is an even more daunting task, running nearly five times as long … and counting, since Wolfe refuses to stop writing. Whipping “Of Time and the River” into shape will take at least nine months of after-hours editing sessions — and more like two years, when all is said and done. It’s enough to raise concerns on the part of both Bernstein and Perkins’ own wife, Louise Saunders (Laura Linney, rendered almost lifeless). The men are not having an affair, of course, but it’s perhaps the best metaphor a screenwriter can find for such an intense professional connection, where a form of love exists on both sides, the sheer intensity of which threatens the romantic partners who feel sidelined by the project.

For this particular storytelling approach to work, however, audiences must also find themselves seduced by the figures in question — a tall order in a movie that’s overwritten, over-scored and wildly overacted by thesps who should all know better. In scenes that effectively seem to have been marinated in music, Law bellows and gesticulates like a barn-raised carnival barker, braying his lines from memory, rather than from the marrow of the tortured poet he’s playing. Though there’s altogether too much of it, Logan has written some splendid dialogue, trying to channel the voice of a writer who couldn’t stop the words from flowing. Pity, then, that most of the time, you just want Wolfe to shut up.

Even Firth’s modesty feels disingenuous, practically pantomimed for effect. Grandage may know how to direct actors for the stage, but this new medium calls for subtlety. When shot in relative closeup, Firth is capable of conveying volumes with the slightest shift of the eye, but here, Grandage gives the character elaborate gestures. To read a letter, he might stand up from his desk, cross his office and shut the door. Watch how uneasy he looks — not so much in character, but in the scene itself — during a trip to a jazz club, where Wolfe requests a lively version of “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton” to illustrate the difference between his style and that of Scriber’s star Henry James.

It’s a turning point in Perkins and Wolfe’s relationship, like the one where he kicks in the window of the tenement where Wolfe wrote “Look Homeward, Angel,” but both characters’ actions feel telegraphed. They don’t look, move or speak like believable people, and the airless sepia look of the film doesn’t help. From its ill-advised tone-setting opener, which fades from black-and-white to the still nearly-monochromatic dust hue that characterizes the rest of the picture, “Genius” is the sort of period re-creation where everyone seems to be wearing 80-year-old costumes. Even Wolfe’s manuscript looks old, like it’s been pulled out of deep storage, rather than written on whatever paper he could get his hands on.

For a film that speaks of writers whose vivid modern voice transformed the shape of American fiction, “Genius” merely reminds us how, for all the excitement critics and readers showered upon him during the day, Wolfe has faded from our must-read lists. He’s a taxing presence, using up all the oxygen in rooms where someone really ought to open the windows. Meanwhile, Fitzgerald and Hemingway (who’ve benefited from far more frequent screen appearances) are reduced to cameos, making one long even for the liveliness their characters brought to “Midnight in Paris.” When Wolfe goes to Paris, he’s merely stepped from one series of drearily set-dressed backdrops to another, where a flower cart and an awning are somehow meant to stand in for Europe.

Of all the characters, the one who seems to take Grandage’s theatricality best is Bernstein, who treats the world as her stage, giving Kidman a chance to camp things up as she pops pills, brandishes a tiny purse pistol and delivers the film’s most unfortunate line: “I don’t exist anymore. I’ve been edited.” The real question was never meant to be which of these two, mistress or editor, gets most of Wolfe’s time, but whether Perkins truly found an unrefined diamond and made it shine, or if Wolfe’s genius was somehow “O Lost” along the way. To answer that, one really ought to be looking to a book, rather than its relatively wooden adaptation.

Reviewed at Soho House, Berlin, Feb. 14, 2016. (In Berlin Film Festival — competing.) MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 104 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.-U.S.) A Lionsgate release of a Riverstone Pictures presentation, in association with Pinewood Pictures, Film Nation Entertainment, of a Desert Wolf Prods., Michael Grandage Co. production. Produced by Michael Grandage, John Logan. Executive producers, James J. Bagley, A. Scott Berg, Tim Bevan, Nik Bower, Arielle Tepper Madover, Deepak Nayar. Co-producer, Tracey Seaward.
• Crew: Directed by Michael Grandage. Screenplay, John Logan, based on the book “Max Perkins: Editor of Genius” by A. Scott Berg. Camera (color, widescreen), Ben Davis; editor, Chris Dickens; music, Adam Cork; production designer, Mark Digby; supervising art director, Patrick Rolfe; art director, Alex Baily, Gareth Cousins; costume designer, Jane Petrie; sound (Dolby Digital), Peter Lindsay; supervising sound editor, Ian Wilson; re-recording mixers, Andrew Caller, Ian Tapp; visual effects supervisor, Adam Gascoyne; visual effects coordinator, Jenny King; stunt coordinator, James Grogan; special effects supervisor, Neal Champion; assistant director, Deborah Saban; casting, Jina Jay.
• With: Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Guy Pearce, Dominic West, Vanessa Kirby.

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• By David Fear

Maybe it’s when Thomas Wolfe ( Jude Law ), Southern-lit savant and future bestselling novelist, stands stomping his foot on a rainy, slate-gray street, staring up at the Scribner and Sons building. It might be when Maxwell Perkins (Colin Firth), wielding his red pen over a manuscript in a conspicuously shadowy office, stares at the imposing stack of pages that’s just been dropped on his desk. (It’s a magnum opus that’s been turned down by every publisher in town, he’s told, “but it’s unique.”) Or perhaps it’s when the 20th century publishing deity, who’s taken on the job of shaping this doorstopper tome, lectures Wolfe on the importance of a book’s title. (Cue “Eureka!” moment and a new moniker: Look Homeward, Angel. )

But don’t worry if you can’t pinpoint the exact moment that actor-turned-director Michael Grandage’s drama about the working relationship between these two titans reveals its true nature. Regardless of when your personal “when” happens, there will eventually come a point when you have to face an inalienable fact. This is not a deep-dive exploration of two brilliant, difficult men. This is something that rhymes with “blatant Shmoscarbait,” pure and simple, and it will get worse before it gets better.

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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. Every scene seems to be lit in a way that screams “you are watcthing a prestigious period pic” Every exchange seems designed not to reveal character or explore the duo’s right-brain/left-brain partnership so much as provide excuses to cough up clichés and chest-thump. Every opportunity to play Famous Author Karaoke is indulged (Guy Pearce as F. Scott Fitzgerald! Dominic West as Hemingway!) Every very female supporting role is either half-baked or served still-bloody rare. (Laura Linney’s good wife is relegated to either lovingly supportive looks or crowing “what about your kids?!?”; as Wolfe’s spurned lover and cheerleader, Nicole Kidman ‘s sole requirement is to pantomime bitter and brittle. Both deserve better.)

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Even when Genius stumbles upon something dramatically chewy,it can’t seem to resist the temptation to self-destructively deep-six its grace notes. Fretting over a long descriptive passage of Wolfe’s second novel Of Time and the River, the author and Perkins argue over what should stay and what needs to go. One thinks every verb matters; the other wants a simpler, cleaner prose. Firth and Law finally lock into a rhythm, a give-and-take sense of tension and negotiation builds, and for once, the film captures the fine art of kill-your-darlings massacring that is editing. Then Law screams in “I looove you, Max Perkins!” in a caricaturish North Carolina drawl as his friend’s train pulls away, and out come the strings on the score. This is a movie allegedly dedicated to finding the genius buried beneath indulgent clutter. Physician, heal thyself.

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Movie Reviews

'genius' is, as the saying has it, 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration.

Bob Mondello

Genius does its best to make the editing process between Max Perkins (Colin Firth) and Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law) kinetic. Marc Brenner/Courtesy of Roadside Attractions hide caption

Genius does its best to make the editing process between Max Perkins (Colin Firth) and Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law) kinetic.

The Roaring '20s are in full roar when we meet fabled editor Maxwell Perkins in Genius, but to look at him, his nose perpetually buried in a manuscript, you'd never guess he is walking through a New York that's populated by flappers and swells swilling bathtub gin.

On the street, on a train, in his office awaiting a new writer, this chaperone to Scribners scribes (who included Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) is not at all a demonstrative man. As played by Colin Firth, in fact, you'd be likely to call him "unreadable."

That's as opposed to then-unpublished novelist Thomas Wolfe, who at the age of 28 is demonstrative to a fault as played by Jude Law. Storming into Perkins' office to say — in a torrent of verbiage that mimics his prose style — that he quite prefers to be rejected by mail, he is momentarily silenced by the editor's quiet, "We intend to publish your book."

Only momentarily, though.

The manuscript he has submitted — then called O, Lost, but eventually titled Look Homeward, Angel — is many thousands of words too long. And Wolfe, not being what you might call, disciplined (he scribbles in longhand on scraps of paper piled atop his refrigerator), is not inclined to part with many of them.

Coddled by his married mistress (Nicole Kidman, stern and forbidding), and barely tolerated by Perkins' somewhat neglected wife (Laura Linney, fuming quietly), Wolfe is used to battling the world solo and doesn't quite know what to do with an ally, let alone a cajolingly friendly father figure. He'll learn.

Filmmakers have a notoriously difficult time capturing a writer's creative process because there's nothing cinematic about an author hunched over a typewriter. An editor's process? Oy. But Genius takes a serious stab at making it kinetic. Perkins at one point reads a passage about love at first sight, his voice caressing every word. Firth makes it sound like Shakespeare, words cascading from him in a rush. Gorgeous ... just gorgeous, you think to yourself.

And then he takes out his red pencil.

Director Michael Grandage hails from the stage. So does screenwriter John Logan, so where films about writers are often filled with raised eyebrows rather than raised voices, these guys actively encourage grand gestures. Like the characters, they are intoxicated — not just by jazz or bootleg liquor, but by words.

By the time they're finished with that particular passage about love, editing in offices, and speakeasies and train terminals, they've eliminated hundreds of the pesky things, but the remaining 25 are worth shouting above the din of a train pulling out of the station: "Eugene saw a woman. Her eyes were blue. So quickly did he fall for her that no one in the room even heard the sound."

"End of Chapter 4," bellows Wolfe as the train recedes.

"Only 98 more to go," Perkins yells back.

Is it too much? Well, sure. Genius is more Thomas Wolfe than Max Perkins, you might say. The film has not fared well with critics, possibly because critics are used to being edited and thus are not inclined to think of editors as heroic.

Obviously they've not met my editor. (Wonder if she'll cut this part. Guess we'll see.)

• Cast & crew
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• 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.
• When, one day in 1929, writer Thomas Wolfe decided to keep the appointment made by Max Perkins, editor at Scribner's, he had no illusions: his manuscript would be turned down as had invariably been the case. But, to his happy amazement, his novel, which was to become "Look Homeward, Angel," was accepted for publication. The only trouble was that it was overlong (by 300 pages) and had to be reduced. Although reluctant to see his poetic prose trimmed, Wolfe agreed and was helped by Perkins, who had become a true friend, with the result that it instantly became a favorite with the critics and a best seller. Success was even greater in 1935 when "Of Time and the River" appeared, but the fight for reducing Wolfe's logorrheic written expression had been even harder, with the novel originally at 5,000 pages. Perkins managed to cut 90,000 words from the book, and with bitterness ultimately taking its toll, the relationships between the two men gradually deteriorated. Wolfe did not feel grateful to Perkins any longer but had started resenting him for owing his success to him. — Guy Bellinger

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Genius (2016)

Did thomas wolfe really struggle to get his first novel published.

Yes. Like in the Genius movie, the true story confirms that Thomas Wolfe's manuscript, which was over 1,100 pages (roughly three times longer than the average novel), was turned down by a number of publishers before it was read by Max Perkins and accepted at Scribner's. Unlike what is seen in the movie, Perkins initially dismissed the book until the enthusiasm of colleague Wallace Meyer caused him to change his mind. Perkins cut some 66,000 words before it was eventually published as Look Homeward, Angel . -North Carolina Digital History The real Thomas Wolfe (left) is portrayed by British actor Jude Law (right) in the Genius movie.

Did Thomas Wolfe change the title of his first book in a moment of enlightenment?

No. According to Editor of Genius author A. Scott Berg, Max Perkins and colleague John Hall Wheelock chose the new title "Look Homeward, Angel" from a list that Thomas Wolfe had given them.

Which famous authors was Maxwell Perkins responsible for publishing?

Following his graduation from Harvard College in 1907, Maxwell Perkins was employed as a reporter at The New York Times . In 1910, he took a job at the respected publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons. He married Louise Saunders that same year (portrayed by Laura Linney in the movie). At Scribner's, he focused on courting younger writers, discovering F. Scott Fitzgerald ( The Great Gatsby ) and Ernest Hemingway ( A Farewell to Arms ). Like in the movie, his greatest struggle as an editor came when he met Thomas Wolfe, a genius who lacked discipline as a writer. -Biography.com Perkins worked with many other notable authors over the course of his career, including John P. Marquand ( The Late George Apley ), Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ( The Yearling ), Alan Paton ( Cry, the Beloved Country ), James Jones ( From Here to Eternity ), and others.

Did Thomas Wolfe really have a problem keeping the size of his novels within reason?

Yes. Fact-checking the Genius movie confirmed that Thomas Wolfe's tendency to not want to cut anything from his novels and to continually want to add more pages, presented a challenge for his editor, Max Perkins. At the insistence of Perkins, Wolfe reluctantly agreed to cut 90,000 words from his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel (1929). The publishing of Thomas Wolfe's second novel, Of Time and the River (1935), was the result of a two-year long battle that saw Wolfe continually trying to add pages while Perkins struggled to make edits and hold his stance on size. The original version of the book was four times as large as the uncut version of his first novel, making it approximately ten times the length of the average novel. Indeed, editing was needed and in an odd way, Perkins welcomed the challenge. Constantly trying to contain the size of Wolfe's novel became a sort of obsession for Perkins. -Max Perkins: Editor of Genius

How much older was Aline Bernstein than Thomas Wolfe?

In real life, costume designer Aline Bernstein, portrayed by Nicole Kidman, was 18 years older than her lover, author Thomas Wolfe.

Did Wolfe's lover Aline Bernstein try to commit suicide?

Yes, but the movie suggests that Aline Bernstein had swallowed at least some of the pills before Tom Wolfe could slap them from her hands. In real life, Max Perkins rang the elevator bell to summon the building's night watchman, who got them to a dermatologist working late in her office. The doctor called the pharmacy and determined that all the pills were accounted for. -Max Perkins: Editor of Genius

Did Max Perkins turn down an invitation to go fishing with Ernest Hemingway because of his struggle with Thomas Wolfe?

Yes, the Genius true story reveals that author Ernest Hemingway, who had been discovered by Max Perkins, indeed invited the editor to go on a Key West fishing excursion with him. Perkins turned him down, stating, "I am engaged in a kind of life and death struggle with Mr. Thomas Wolfe still, and it is likely to last through the summer." He is referring to the struggle of having to constantly try to edit Wolfe's second book, Of Time and the River , to keep the size down. It was a colossal task because Wolfe continually submitted more pages and argued against any cuts. -Max Perkins: Editor of Genius

Why did Thomas Wolfe cut ties with Charles Scribner's Sons and editor Max Perkins?

In a November 1936 letter to Maxwell Perkins, Thomas Wolfe addresses his decision to sever ties with the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons, thereby ending his working relationship with editor Perkins. Wolfe cites their "differences of opinion and belief" and "the fundamental disagreements" that they openly and passionately had discussed "a thousand times." In the end, he felt Scribner's had reshaped his second book, Of Time and the River , into a standard assembly-line novel that no longer resembled what he had written. Some critics suggested that the editor Perkins, not the author Wolfe, was responsible for most of the book's success, a notion that upset Wolfe and left him wanting to prove otherwise. In addition, Scribner's was insisting that Wolfe settle a $125,000 lawsuit brought by his ex-landlords, who claimed that Wolfe had libeled them in various passages of his novella No Door . Wolfe adamantly opposed the accusation. The suit (not mentioned in the movie) was settled but Wolfe felt that in turn Scribner's had betrayed him. He parted ways with the publishing house in January 1937. -The American Reader The real Max Perkins (left) and British actor Colin Firth (right) in the movie.

Was Thomas Wolfe and Maxwell Perkins' relationship in any way romantic?

Though the movie at times edges on a near-romantic relationship between Wolfe and his editor Perkins, others have described the real Max Perkins as being more of a father figure to Wolfe. Indeed there was a special bond between the two men, as evidenced in Wolfe's letters to Perkins and Perkins' own remarks about Wolfe, calling their friendship "one of the greatest things in my life" ( Publishers Weekly ). Despite some speculation, there is little doubt that the two were just very close friends.

Are any of the actors portraying Americans in the movie actually American?

For the most part, no, and this has been a slight point of contention for some critics and viewers. Colin Firth, who portrays Maxwell Perkins, is British. Jude Law is British. Dominic West (Hemingway in the movie) is British and Guy Pearce (F. Scott Fitzgerald) is Australian. As for the women, Australian Nicole Kidman portrays costume designer Aline Bernstein and Brit Vanessa Kirby is Zelda Fitzgerald. Of the actors in lead roles, only Laura Linney, who portrays Perkins' wife Louise, is American.

Watch the Genius trailer for the film starring Colin Firth and Jude Law as Max Perkins and Thomas Wolfe. The movie preview highlights the turbulent working relationship between the editor and author.

• Official Genius Movie Website

Genius – A Literary Period Drama Starring Colin Firth, Jude Law, and Nicole Kidman

Genius period drama review.

Genius, a new and underappreciated period drama, came out so quietly that you may not even know of its existence. And with a stellar A-list cast like Colin Firth, Jude Law, and Nicole Kidman (yes, Inman and Ada are reunited onscreen!), one has to wonder why Genius went so far under the radar. Too literary? Too poetic? Were the powerful performances just not enough? Whatever the case, Genius is now available digitally and on DVD and worth the time of period drama lovers everywhere.

Genius follows the infamous friendship between Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins (Colin Firth) and the eccentric novelist, Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law). It is 1929 and not one publishing company wants anything to do with Wolfe’s extremely lengthy novel. Then it lands on the desk of the talented editor, Max Perkins, the same editor responsible for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

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Immediately, Maxwell Perkins feels drawn to the lyrical and poetic words of Thomas Wolfe. While the book needs major editing, he sees the genius in the words. So, he calls Wolfe in for a meeting. And out of curiosity, Thomas Wolfe attends (though he was very much expecting another rejection). Instead of rejection, however, a close partnership between editor and writer begins, one that over time feels more like father and son. Soon, the two begin editing Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel and later, Of Time and the River .

Maxwell Perkins, a father of all girls and a devoted husband, is a family man, making a stark contrast to the wild (also a little narcissistic) Thomas Wolfe, but Perkins still can’t help but be drawn into his world. Wolfe writes with a fervor and passion, the words just flowing out of him as if on fire. But as words come out in the thousands, the editing process of cutting his novels down to appropriate lengths creates tension between the two men. Wolfe feels that every word is important while Perkins believes that Wolfe needs to be more concise. With differing opinions, the two men share some amazing and literary conversations. The dialogue becomes poetic like the classic American novelists of this time.

Every line is purposeful and lyrically beautiful, and while not a fast-moving film (perhaps a detriment to some filmgoers), the performances of the actors and the deep characterization of the main characters are fascinating. For those who love classic literature or even just Colin Firth, Jude Law, or Nicole Kidman, Genius will not be a waste of your time.

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However, if you’re looking for a romantic period drama, I wouldn’t go in expecting much. This is about male friendship (from beginning to tragic end). Sure, Colin Firth has a wonderful relationship with his wife played by Laura Linney but that doesn’t account for any sort of romance.

And as for the Jude Law and Nicole Kidman reunion, you will, at the very least, be happy that the chemistry remains just as palpable as ever. Still, the love story between Wolfe and much older Aline Bernstein isn’t exactly romantic (just look up their history) as it is much more toxic than anything else. Despite all that, the relationship and performances by Law and Kidman are so fabulous that you don’t really care that there is a lack of romance in Genius . It’s just so unnecessary. This is also a true story after all.

Overall, the stylistic flow from the director, the poetic dialogue from screenwriter John Logan (the creator of Penny Dreadful and screenwriter of The Aviator ), and fantastic performances from some of the best actors out there make Genius a must-see film. While relatively ignored, this top-notch film should be one you add to your watchlist.

Content Note: Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, mild language, and suggestive content.

Where to Watch: Genius is available to rent on Digital or buy on DVD. You can also stream on HBO, and Amazon Video (through the HBO channel).

Photos by Marc Brenner/ Pinewood Films

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In second grade, Autumn wrote her first story, “The Spinach Monster,” and hasn't stopped writing since. Intrigued by the tales her grandmother told of vampires, witches, and ghosts as a girl, she's always been drawn to the fantastic. Later, Autumn studied English and Creative Writing (continuing her love for classic literature and everything old-fashioned) and graduated with an MA in Children’s Literature and an MS in Library & Information Science from Simmons College. Currently, she co-runs this lovely site and works as a YA Librarian.

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Even at Its Most Dynamic, Genius Is Still a Movie About Book Editing

Is there any profession less cinematic than book editing? I say that with enormous respect, given that my wife edits books (and damn good ones). But in all the years I’ve watched her pore over manuscripts and wrestle over phrasing with authors both grateful and intransigent, and beam when that first printed book arrives in the mail (after so many hassles over covers and flap copy), I’ve never thought, This would make a great movie!

But the new film Genius does a pretty good job of capturing the peculiar drama of the relationship between editors and writers, in this case some of the most revered in American letters: Max Perkins, an editor at of Scribner’s, and, in alphabetical order, authors F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. It’s the bond with Wolfe that occupies most of the movie’s running time. At the start, Perkins (Colin Firth) gets a fat manuscript plopped on his desk — a novel turned down by every other publisher in New York. He reads a few lines, then a few more. He reads on the train to his impressive Connecticut home and over dinner as his wife and kids visibly wilt from neglect. The book is the sprawling first draft of what would come to be called Look Homeward, Angel . Just as Perkins finishes, Wolfe appears at the door, uninvited and unannounced. As played by Jude Law, he’s a disarmingly extroverted Southerner, high on his own persona. And Perkins is oddly smitten.

So how do the filmmakers make editing cinematic? Perkins and Wolfe go mano a mano over booze and cigarettes. They edit while hurrying down the street. They edit in bars. Other male characters in movies play increasingly fierce squash. These guys do increasingly fierce rewrites . A description of a woman’s eyes goes from a logjam of metaphors to the simple observation that they’re blue. And to be fair, Perkins worries aloud near the end of Genius that he has straitjacketed his authors, paring away the passionate excess that made them unique. The movie lets that self-doubt hang, which is a good thing. Editors — even great ones — should always cut with humility.

But if you’re looking for something more than line editing, look elsewhere — perhaps to A. Scott Berg’s 1978 biography, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius . (The title, of course, is a double entendre.) You wouldn’t know from the film what Look Homeward, Angel is about, much less its author’s vision of the universe and the place of humans in it. The focus is firmly on length and on the emotional intensity of the haggling. Wolfe’s high-strung lover, Aileen Bernstein (Nicole Kidman), warns Perkins that he has been seduced and will be abandoned down the road, but Perkins — buttoned up, always wearing a hat — is not a man to worry about such a thing. It is beyond his purview.

Watching Genius , you might have the nagging sense that the most vivid stuff is occurring offscreen, when the other characters leave Perkins and go back to their messy lives. And while that might be the point  — we’ve had plenty of self-destructive author biopics, but none that focused on people who tried to instill discipline in them — it makes for half-baked drama. It doesn’t help that the first-time film director, Michael Grandage (the artistic director of London’s Donmar Warehouse), has gone the British-prestige route. It’s terribly high-toned. And with the exception of Laura Linney in a minor role as Perkins’s wife, a middlebrow playwright, the actors are all Brits and Aussies. It’s as if Americans can’t be trusted to play quintessentially American literary figures.

Firth isn’t bad. In some ways, he’s perfect — as beige as the part demands. Guy Pearce isn’t a bad Fitzgerald, either, although he’s a controlled actor and doesn’t convey what a sniveling wreck the man was at the end of his talent. Dominic West is a solid Hemingway. Kidman gives a brittle, pungent performance as the Jewish costume and set designer who left her husband and two kids for Wolfe, but it seems as if her specialty has become getting by in parts in which she’s totally miscast.

For better or worse, Jude Law carries Genius . Does he overact? Perhaps, but he does suggest that it’s also Wolfe who’s overacting, putting on a grand show to keep his vulnerability at bay. Thank heaven Law gave up the leading-man game and went back to character parts, in which he always goes for broke. But neither he nor Genius is ingenious enough to make you think, We need more movies about editing!

• movie review
• nicole kidman
• colin firth

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Jude Law goes way over the top in 'Genius'

Film tells the story of how editor maxwell perkins (colin firth) helped thomas wolfe (jude law) create literary masterpieces. but the performances don't match the title..

• Critic's rating: 3 out of 5 stars

When you’re a student assigned to read the great books, it’s a wonderful discovery when, for the most part, you realize there’s a reason you have to read them — they are, in fact, great.

Director Michael Grandage’s “Genius” is the story of how some of those books came to be, and if you’re a devotee of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Wolfe, the idea of seeing how their shared editor Maxwell Perkins helped bring forth novels like “The Sun Also Rises,” “The Great Gatsby” and “Look Homeward, Angel” is enticing.

RELATED: Director Michael Grandage has his 'Genius' moment

The movie itself is a little less so.

If you’re a literature junkie, and I cringe at typing the phrase because it sounds so quaint in a world of 140-character expressions of self, then the film has its fascinating moments.

The performances aren’t really among them.

That’s a shame, too, because this is a powerhouse cast. Colin Firth plays Perkins, Jude Law plays Thomas Wolfe, Guy Pearce plays F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dominic West plays Ernest Hemingway and Nicole Kidman plays Aline Bernstein, Wolfe’s lover and early champion.

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By the way, in this most American of stories, none of the actors are from the United States. That doesn’t necessarily matter — they are actors and, as I’ve argued before, Mr. Spock wasn’t really a Vulcan (spoiler alert). But it is kind of weird. Of the main cast, only Laura Linney, as Perkins’ wife, is from the United States.

Pearce is actually good as the haunted, doomed Fitzgerald; and Kidman has a nice, dangerous spark as Bernstein. But the film revolves around Perkins and Wolfe, and Grandage, working from a script by John Logan based on A. Scott Berg’s book, directs them to polar opposite performances, when nudging them toward the center would have been more effective.

First we meet Perkins, who never takes his hat off (until the end), almost never smiles and seems as buttoned up as his starched shirts.

But of his genius (see title) there is no doubt. He reads and edits manuscripts on the train home from his office in New York, where he spends the day reading and editing manuscripts. Once at home, dodging his wife and daughters, he makes his way to a bedroom closet, where he reads some more.

Then one day, Wolfe bursts into his office, full of enthusiasm, full of himself. He’s bursting with words, but he’s been turned down by every publisher in town. Wolfe is toting a massive explosion of a manuscript, words everywhere, which he is calling “O Lost.” To his surprise, Perkins says they plan to publish the thing, but only after they’ve worked to cut a huge chunk of it and organized it. It would be retitled “Look Homeward, Angel.”

Wolfe becomes a celebrity upon its publication, straining his relationship with the married Bernstein, who does not take it calmly, shall we say. She knows what’s up — the mercurial Wolfe will switch his allegiance to Perkins, then exhaust him and move on. The storms that arise in the relationships, however, are not as interesting as the work — as when Wolfe and Perkins fight over individual sentences, Perkins honing, Wolfe defending, adding, finally agreeing.

Despite the acclaim Wolfe’s work received upon publication, there has been a shift in thinking among some as to whether Perkins made his work better. Certainly, he made it different, and more accessible. But that’s another story for another movie.

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What’s not to love, then? For starters, Law is so over the top he’d need a parachute to come down. He wraps a Southern drawl around the North Carolina-born Wolfe and talks and talks and talks and talks. I get what Grandage is going for — the personification of Wolfe’s wild, undisciplined word flow that, once shaped with Perkins’ firm hand, becomes art. But after five minutes of listening to him talk, you realize Perkins should be praised not just for his editing but his restraint, for not strangling the guy.

Reach Goodykoontz at [email protected]. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: twitter.com/goodyk.

Genius (2016) | Phoenix Arizona Movie Theater Showtimes Reviews

'Genius,' 3 stars

Director: Michael Grandage.

Cast: Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman.

Rating: PG-13 for some thematic elements and suggestive content.

Note: At Harkins Shea.

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Cinemalogue

Trash, art, and the movies.

• Movie Reviews

Thomas Wolfe was repeatedly told by his trusted editor that his manuscripts were too long and rambling, filled with extraneous details and irrelevant tangents. Curiously, Genius is almost the opposite.

This period drama chronicles the true-life partnership between the emotionally unstable novelist and the more level-headed literary editor who shepherded his rise to prominence in New York during the Depression. Yet it sacrifices depth and context in favor of overwrought confrontations and emotional contrivances that make its artistic portrait seem slight.

As the film opens, the fledgling career of Wolfe (Jude Law) is given a lifeline by Max Perkins (Colin Firth), an esteemed editor at Scribner’s with a history of taking chances on troubled projects. Wolfe’s erratic behavior might be off-putting to some, but seems captivating to Max, who only sees the talent in his words.

That devotion to writing deepens the unlikely friendship between the two men as they agonize back and forth over edits to the author’s most famous works, including Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River . But their partnership puts a strain on their relationships, Wolfe to his outspoken wife (Nicole Kidman) and Max to his wife (Laura Linney) and family.

The film sufficiently captures its setting, and perhaps more importantly, it hearkens back to an era long before audio books and Kindles, when hard-cover books served as the only conduit between author and reader, and when the editing process consisted of face-to-face meetings over printed pages in smoke-filled offices rather than emails and Google docs.

Still, the screenplay by John Logan ( Gladiator ) falls short in terms of character development. While it dives into the creative process to a certain extent, the film never really conveys what makes Wolfe’s rhapsodic prose so distinct — how he mixes styles and tones, for example — nor what Max sees in it that his colleagues do not.

To suggest that an editor who oversees works by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway somehow needs this boorish lunatic to further his career seems far-fetched. And amid all the macho posturing, the women in the film are left to be passive and vulnerable.

Rookie director Michael Grandage, a stage veteran, can’t reconcile that emotional void in a film that never explicitly identifies which man is the Genius of the title, but doesn’t make much of a case for either one.

Rated PG-13, 104 minutes.

• History Overview
• The History of Asheville
• The House 1880s – 1950s
• The Wolfe Family
• The Works of Thomas Wolfe
• Thomas Wolfe’s Reviews
• Tom’s Life
• Teacher Information
• Tours and Activities
• Lessons and Programs
• Student Writing Contest

Genius, the Movie

Several efforts have been made to bring a major work by Thomas Wolfe to the movies.

October 4, 1953, on NBC, the Hallmark Hall of Fame series aired a portion of the novel Of Time and the River concerning the death of W.O. Gant. Another TV movie was released on NBC February 25, 1972. This time based on Ketti Frings Pulitzer Prize play based on Look Homeward, Angel . The movie was nominated for a Golden Globe award in the category for Best TV Special. On April 25, 1979 CBS aired the TV movie “You Can’t Go Home Again.”  It was originally intended to be a pilot for a six-part TV series. One TV Guide reviewer wrote: “They say Wolfe’s genius begged editing, but goodness, CBS must have put You Can’t Go Home Again through a blender.

Max Perkins: Editor of Genius

Jude Law and Colin Firth star in the movie ‘Genius,’ portraying novelist Thomas Wolfe and renowned book editor Max Perkins.

Now, for the very first time, Thomas Wolfe played by actor Jude Law, will be a character in a movie based on the biography by Scott Berg, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius . Screenwriter John Logan noted that in the early 1990s he met with Scott Berg about making the movie,

“I knew this would be a very difficult movie to set up. A period film about a book editor is the least sexy Hollywood pitch ever.”

Tell Us Your Thoughts

Have you seen the movie? Do you want to talk about it? That’s what the Comments section is for! Leave us a comment below, and tell us what you thought about the movie  Genius .

Bottom line: a solid movie, due to its scenes of respect for the reading process and the writing process. This is a movie about New York and Perkins, so no mountain scenes and one reference to Asheville. Good acting from Firth, Kidman, Linney, “Hemingway” and “Fitzgerald.” Zelda came across like a zombie, Aline Bernstein as unhinged (the worst part of the movie). Jude Law miscast; I wished for a Vincent D’Onofrio – someone with BULK. I hope it breaks even financially. At least it’s not another Transformers movie.

I saw the movie Genius tonight (June 16) and loved it! My favorite character was that of Maxwell Perkins (Colin Firth), perhaps because he seemed most believable (based on all that I have read about him.) Thomas Wolfe, played by Jude Law, was a little less convincing, perhaps because he seemed a bit over the top in his behavior and his raw emotion. I would have enjoyed it better if he had toned it down a bit. The film makers have done a good job, I think, in compressing so much material into a few hours of screen time, and I liked many of the devices they used, such as the music – Sweet Afton, weaving it into a night club scene as well as Wolfe’s funeral. I liked Julia Wolfe’s portrayal, and all of the Perkins children, but missed having any reference to Wolfe’s siblings. Worth seeing again, after I have looked up some of the details to see if they came from Scott Berg’s biography!

Genius is a fascinating look into the working lives and challenges not only of Thomas Wolfe, but also contemporaries like Fitzgerald and Hemingway–and their editor Max Perkins. Jude Law’s wretched attempt at a Southern accent notwithstanding, I enjoyed the movie’s portrayal of deeply intimate–and conflicted–writer-editor relationships. The movie poses an implicit question: is the “genius” of the writing process the author or editor? Reading Wolfe left me thinking he could have used a more ruthless editor; “Genius” revealed that in fact he had one, and made me appreciate Perkins’ genius as an editor and, effectively, therapist. As an Asheville resident I would have loved to see our town featured in the movie, but of course that is one of the central theme’s of Wolfe’s life. He could never home again, thus the movie’s setting everywhere but “Altamont.” Worth seeing for anyone interested in the writing process.

As a novelist, screenwriter, and member of the board of both the Thomas Wolfe Memorial and the Thomas Wolfe Society, here are my comments on the movie GENIUS. That Wolfe and his novels are gigantic is well-known even among many who never cracked one of his books. To watch him cavort with a taller editor and a taller mistress is ludicrous, and gives folks who don’t know Wolfe the expectation of a different person as they seek to know him better. Max was average height. Was Aline tall, skinny, and the same age as Tom? That she was plumb but beautiful and older than Tom is a storied part of their relationship. Is it true that Max never smiled? He was known to smile often. Is it true that Aline was a grim whiner? She was Wolfe’s victim, cursed and ridiculed as rich and Jewish, as her granddaughter’s play dramatizes. Did Aline work in a small time theater as a seamstress, or was she the most sophisticated, celebrated costume designer of her time. Is it true that the author of many passages of light, never really saw the light of day [ref. the eye-squinting late twilight of the film]. Did he collapse alone at the ocean? Did he write to Max from his death bed? Did Max do nothing but cut Wolfe’s work all those years? [By the way, he said Joseph Pennell was the writer he respected most, c. 1948]. Did editor and writer cut the novel while walking the streets? Did New York look back then not at all like New York? Did Max give Wolfe an advance without first signing a contract and later another advance from his own checkbook? OF TIME AND THE RIVER arrived in a crate, yes, [see posed photograph] but four crates, no? Was jazz a major inspiration for Wolfe’s rhapsodic style or were the King James Bible and Shakespeare and classic poets? Does biographical accuracy matter a great deal in a movie, as contrasted with three major biographies? Not always. Does verisimilitude in a movie about editors and writers matter? Pretty much. Even had I never heard of Wolfe, as a writer, indeed as a scriptwriter for Warner Brothers, as an editor and as an agent for many books, I would have felt, almost scene by scene, on the verge of a fit of irritated groaning watching this misconceived, misbegotten travesty.

A nap on the afternoon of the June 16th preview of the film GENIUS extended into the evening and I woke too late to claim my ticket at The Fine Arts’ will-call window in downtown Asheville; hence, no comments.

A viewing is in my future, but I rented another movie today that has a Wolfe connection, RACE, the story of Jesse Owens. It is set in the years of 1935 and 1936 when Owens was a student at Ohio State and competing for the U.S. Olympic team. The racism in both America and Germany is portrayed as well as the conflict for athletes, members of the Olympic Committee, and other Americans over this country sending a team to Nazi Germany. Participation in the games was seem either as a show of support for, or at least, a blind eye to the Germany government’s bigotry or the chance to defeat athletes of the purity of race espoused by Adolph Hitler. Jesse Owens did choose to compete and won four gold medals. See the movie available at Rosebud on Charlotte Street and from Netflix.

Thomas Wolfe also was in Berlin during the 1936 Olympics. For a first-hand account of what it was like to be in the city and in Germany at this time, read book VI, ‘”I Have A Thing To Tell You”’ in You Can’t Go Home Again. In chapter 38, “The Dark Messiah,” Wolfe writes “The green trees along the Kurfűrstendamm began to talk: the loud-speakers concealed in their branches as announcer in the stadium spoke to the whole city – and for George Webber is was a strange experience to hear the familiar terms of track and field translated into the tongue that Goethe used. He would be informed now that the Vorlauf was about to be run – and then the Zwischenlauf – and at length the Endlauf – and the winner: “Owens-Oo Ess Ah!”

I feel like I have waited years to see “Genius” because that is how long it has been since I first heard about the production. The movie includes an uneven portrayal of Thomas Wolfe. I think the set designers captured New York and the Connecticut home of Perkins well. The acting was first-rate, but Jude Law seemed physically to be the wrong actor for the role. The piece that didn’t fit at all was Nicole Kidman who played a truly fictional Aline. Aline was an older woman, charismatic and powerful, but not terrible attractive– according to what I have read. In the letters between her and Tom, she comments on her weight and her looks. Nicole Kidman looked her waifish self, and the screenwriters twisted her character into a mentally unfit woman. The movie did, however, somewhat capture the sad Wolfe saga. If it brings more people to read Wolfe’s writing, then I am happy it is out there.

I loved the movie. Having known a few men who were truly manic, I think Jude Law nailed it. Maybe because we live our days now checking in on our collective consciousness with social media, et al, it was a pleasure to become immersed in a time when the commitments to each other were more than tweets and “likes.” I loved the look of it – the sepia tones and soft lighting. The dialogue and the quotes from the books were a treasure. I have not read Thomas Wolfe, but now I intend to.I have recently watched several movies with Jude Law – as Watson in “Sherlock Holmes,” the charming and chauvinistic spy in “Spy,” the paraplegic in “Gataka.” This part really extended his range. The movie was thoughtful and sensitive and a pleasure.

Wolfe had a complex, contradictory character. Frugal despite his love of spending, he never threw things away. He was inherently concerned about the existence of things. He had brawny passions: he loved great food, but then he starved himself day after day, almost like fasting, trying to write the great work of his generation. Even further, perhaps mimicking the icons, he partook of the proverbial existential cultural elements of black coffee and cigarettes. He leaned toward alcoholism yet labored many sober days — almost tugging at the delicate balance between life and fantasy — assisting with flowery and descriptive writing in his work.

Read more at: https://medium.com/@nalahverdian/thomas-wolfe-the-southerner-the-existentialist-935ed5227339

I agree totally with David Madden. Very well written.