'Genius' turns life of an editor into compelling tale

Colin Firth, left, and Jude Law star in "Genius."

Of all the creative gifts, the ability to edit - that is, to edit text - is the least heralded and the least understood.

Most people have never been edited, and those who benefit from it most tend to forget that the editing ever happened. But the ability to see a shape within a mess, to recognize a structure before it's in place, to understand on a first read what is there that doesn't belong and what belongs that isn't there - this is no casual talent.

Yet just as no one ever finds and compliments your hairstylist when you happen to look good, no one thinks about editing, and so it's a particular pleasure to see "Genius" make it onto the screen.

The film chronicles the story of editor Max Perkins and his relationship with the eccentric novelist Thomas Wolfe, and about midway through, we figure out which one the filmmakers consider to be the genius.

More than any other editor, Perkins changed American literature. Working at Scribner, he took a chance on F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, and in the case of Wolfe, Perkins more or less edited him into coherence - or at the very least, commercial viability.

Early in the film, Perkins (Colin Firth) gets a manuscript that's about 8-inches thick, which has been rejected by everyone. He starts reading it on the train, back and forth to his house in the suburbs, and when he's finished, he arranges to meet the author.

Jude Law isn't physically what you'd picture for Wolfe, who was 6-foot-6 and on the heavy side, but Law creates a vivid character, spilling over with life and passion - but also anger and judgment. He speaks, as he writes, in a torrent of words, and his sensitivity is appealing, even though it extends only to himself. He is the type of person who makes friends easily and loses them, inevitably.

Firth's Perkins is practically his opposite. He strikes no artist poses. He looks more like an old-time newspaperman and sits at his desk, in a dim room, with his hat on. He listens a lot more than he talks, possibly because he has a slight speech impediment, and he seems genuinely modest about his own abilities, even though he's sure of his opinions.

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

Running time: 104 minutes


You would trust your book with this man, which is not quite the same as saying that you would trust him with your life, but it's something along that line.

"Genius" follows the quasi father-son relationship that develops between the two men. (Perkins, who had five daughters, had always wanted a son.) The film also shows, and this is interesting, the nuts and bolts of the actual work.

It took months and months to get Wolfe's "Look Homeward, Angel" into shape for publication, and even longer to get "Of Time and the River" ready because after the success of the first book, Wolfe was harder to deal with.

At the same time, Perkins must also deal with Wolfe's personal life, which always has a vaguely sordid edge, and with an older mystery woman (Nicole Kidman), who was involved with Wolfe and decides that Perkins is her enemy.

Hemingway (Dominic West) makes a brief appearance, acting very Hemingway-esque, and even better are Guy Pearce's scenes as Fitzgerald. The movie portrays Fitzgerald as he must have seemed in that period, a young man old before his time and a writer past his prime.

Only Perkins seems to know that, of all his many writers, Fitzgerald is the best he's got.