Lots of movies have been made about writers and writing, but relatively few get into the nuts-and-bolts detail of editing raw prose into the stuff we actually read in books and magazines.  Most movies rely on the blank page to pose as an author’s greatest obstacle, a test he or she can only defeat by filling it with his or her brilliant thoughts or analysis.  This is true, I suppose, yet Genius doesn’t pose that problem; instead, author Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law, in a spectacular performance) cannot stop producing prose, even as his book is about to go to press.

Thomas Wolfe (not the later Tom Wolfe of “The Right Stuff”) was a prodigious writer in the early twentieth century — but one who was rejected by all of the New York publishers until editor Max Perkins (Colin Firth) at Scribner’s read his thousand-page manuscript.  Max saw what others did not, and a close collaboration brought “Look Homeward, Angel” to fruition.  An even longer work, “Of Time and the River,” took years to edit, and Wolfe was still writing even as Perkins was pushing it to publication.  Genius is at its best during these scenes, when Perkins is trying to shape Wolfe’s vision into something manageable and focused; yet even Perkins worries that the very editing process may be turning the manuscript into something new, not wholly of Wolfe.

Both men devote themselves to the publishing process, Wolfe because he cannot help but produce words and Perkins because he believes so strongly that Wolfe’s voice is important.  Perkins neglects his wife (Laura Linney) and five daughters in favor of Wolfe, while the life-loving author bandies with a married woman (Nicole Kidman) and many others when she is not around.  The character of Aline Bernstein (Kidman) is very troubling to me; Bernstein was real, helping to inspire and finance much of Wolfe’s writing, yet her portrayal seems so out-of-time, neither contemporary to the Depression years nor satisfying in symbolic terms.  She just doesn’t seem to fit, to me, and so occupies a very uncomfortable place in the story.

Michael Grandage’s film is unabashed in its belief that Wolfe was a great writer, that Perkins was a great editor, and that their unique collaboration was transformative.  It slyly compares Wolfe with Perkins’ two other well-known authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) and Ernest Hemingway (Dominic West).  It conveys the belief that the best writing is worth the emotional sacrifice on everybody’s part that goes into its production, and it illustrates just how complex and sensitive the editing process is on both writer and editor.  It is a very good film, with two wonderful performances, about a writer that I confess I know very little about.  I don’t know if I’ll ever tackle “Of Time and the River” but I’m sure that “Look Homeward, Angel” is soon to join my reading list.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  1 July 2016.