GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

jwriter-09410 When I was in Asheville, North Carolina two years ago in August of 2016 to visit Thomas Wolfe's home, the movie "Genius" had just come out in June and I had planned to see it. Like many, I'm a huge Thomas Wolfe fan. The movie was already out of theaters when I returned home. I didn't know the film was based on A. Scott Berg's book, "Max Perkins" when I happened onto this great biography this April at the University of Chicago's bookstore. So when I rented "Genius" on Saturday and watched it, seeing that it was based on Berg's work, I knew everything had been lined up for me to see it in this manner. Despite what a few of the obnoxious critics wrote, most of whom I'm certain didn't read Berg's book, this movie does provide a fairly accurate presentation of Thomas Wolfe and Maxwell Perkins, based on Berg's book. It's not exact, which is what the critics have jumped on because at the beginning of the movie, it states, "A True Story," not "Based on a True Story," but it most certainly provides a glimpse of who these men were, their relationship, their work together, their personal struggles, etc. All of the scenes in the movie, with the exception of the jazz club, were in the book, just as presented. I would encourage anyone interested in great American literature to see "Genius." Thomas Wolfe could have been somewhat manic, as depicted in the movie - although the extreme level of wildness depicted by Jude Law is one point in the movie that I struggled with throughout the film. When you read his books, that's not the Thomas Wolfe you see in your mind's-eye. He's much more cerebral, contained, but certainly passionate about his work. However, they probably felt they needed the character to have that level of energy to keep the audience's interest. Many thanks to Desert Wolf Productions' John Logan (screenwriter/producer) and James Bagley (producer) for bringing this story to the screen. From my perspective, it's impossible not to be blown away at Thomas Wolfe's incredible talent as a "poet novelist." I hope some of you will read "Look Homeward Angel," "Of Time and the River," and "You Can't Go Home Again." They are pure genius!

Michael Ledo This is a biopic of the relationship of editor Maxwell Evarts Perkins (Colin Firth) and his newly discovered genius author Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law) who has self destructive tendencies that disrupts the lives of those he touches. We meet his girlfriend Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman) who has given up her family for his genius. F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) is in his waning years, caring for Zelda (Vanessa Kirby) the topic for a different biopic tragedy.The film was well acted as one might guess from all the A listers. The problem I had was, like my life, it pretty much goes no where. We can discuss various themes such as Wolfe's search for a father, but any real theme eluded me, and the film really needed something to define its purpose more openly.Guide: No F-words, sex, or nudity.

Erik Stuborn An exceptional film, especially for a first movie by a director who has been a television actor and not too prolific. With several moments of intense emotion perfectly developed and interpreted by the three main actors —Firth, Law and Kidman— that are superb all of them. Precious staging, music, lighting, recreation of the ambient of the beginning of the century and all those words, always those beautiful words, at its right time and in its proper place. Probably, over time, it will become one of the best films of the past year. Also I think every writer should see it.

Robert J. Maxwell It's difficult to make a movie about a writer. After all, the only thing they do is sit there and write. Look at the disaster that was "Hemingway and Gelhorn," with Big Ernie played by Groucho Marx. Or "Julia," with Jane Fonda throwing a typewriter through the window. There's the soap opera about F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Beloved Infidel." I mention "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" only in passing.This effort to capture Thomas Wolfe the way he captured metaphors is more successful than the others. And his writing isn't just alluded to; it's integrated meaningfully into the plot. I haven't read any of his novels. They do go on. Ars longa, vita brevis. But I did skim some shorter work of his many years ago and, without at all trying to, I had one of his more striking images burned into some long-term memory cell -- something about a setting sun over Brooklyn hanging in the sky "like a hot copper penny." It ain't bad.Neither are the performances, all of which clear the bar. Nicole Kidman is Tom Wolfe's married lover who has sustained him over the rough patches. He discards her when he no longer needs her, but who can blame him? A theater person, she is hysterical half the time and rude the other half. She gobbles pills in a fake suicide attempt and pulls a pistol on docile Max Perkins. It all began to remind me of my marriage. Guy Pearce has a small role as a distraught F. Scott Fitzgerald and is perhaps a bit robust for the part. Laura Linney is fine but doesn't have much to do as Perkins' wife.The film belongs to Colin Firth as Max Perkins, the editor as Scribner's publishing house, and to Jude Law as the passionate, loud, Byronic Thomas Wolfe, shouting ecstatically, waving his arms about, recklessly drunk. His prose is, as they say, sheer poetry. But he has a genuine problem with his writing. Everything he writes goes on too long. If a minor character makes an appearance, say, a railway porter, Wolfe gives us his whole life story. Perkins' job is to winnow the prose until it's golden. When discussing the fourth chapter of one of the novels with Wolfe, Perkins explains why the text is prolix and makes observations and criticisms that would benefit a high school lit class. It's clear without being challenging. Nicely done by screenwriter John Logan.Throughout the film, Perkins wears a fedora. He doesn't take it off when he's at the office or at home having dinner. There's no indication that he removes it when he goes to bed. He's a prim, stuffy, urban bourgeois who is introduced to rhapsodic displays in what would have been called Negro night clubs. I thought Perkins always wore that conspicuous hat because he was hiding a bald spot, but no. He wears it so that in the last scene, after Wolfe has passed away, he can reveal the depth of his affection for his lost friend by removing it for the first time. In this final scene there is a slow pan across the book shelf in Perkins' office. The modern classics are all there, cheek by jowl -- Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and the rest -- and Wolfe's novels are among them. All except one, "You Can't Go Home Again." It was Wolfe's ultimate work but was patched together by a different editor.This is a rare, successful movie about a writer and about his editor. What could have been either extremely dull or extremely phony, isn't either. It's not a masterpiece but it's pretty good.