Patently Reviewed.

A review of Flash of Genius.

I really wanted to love Flash of Genius, because it’s my kind of movie. If I have a wheelhouse, the biopic tale of an underdog triumphing over evil occupies a great deal of real estate in there. And while I enjoyed Flash of Genius and wouldn’t discourage anyone from seeing it, the film does not fall into the "rush right out" category. In fact, given its pacing, Flash of Genius is precisely the type of movie that might best be enjoyed at home on DVD, so you can pause it every so often and even take a break at some point so that you don’t get too impatient with the methodical unfolding of events that builds toward a predictable conclusion.

Adapted by Philip Railsback from a New Yorker story by John Seabrook and directed by Marc Abraham (an accomplished producer of such fare as Children of Men and Thirteen Days making his directorial debut), Flash of Genius chronicles the tale of Dr. Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear), the electrical engineering professor who first cracked the code, so to speak, and successfully created a functioning intermittent windshield wiper. After conceiving the circuitry behind the intermittent windshield wiper, Kearns strikes a deal with the Ford Motor Company to manufacture and supply it to Ford. Flash of Genius recounts Kearns’ struggle to hold Ford accountable when the powers that be renege on the deal and, for all intents and purposes, steal Kearns’ invention, and the havoc that Kearns’ obsession with and inability to get past this wrong wreaks upon his life and his family.

Flash of Genius is filled with superb performances. Greg Kinnear truly inhabits Bob Kearns, unflinchingly embracing his prickliness, unyielding morality and obsessive nature. Mr. Kinnear infuses Bob Kearns with layers and nuances that make him more likeable than he may have a right to be. He is both the heart of the movie and, to some degree, its greatest challenge. I had the pleasure of attending a Q&A with Mr. Kinnear after seeing the film, and interestingly, he seized upon one of my notes – he mentioned that, originally, after he had read about half of the script, he put it down, having determined that he was fairly certain he didn’t actually like Dr. Kearns. Ultimately, to the benefit of everyone, Mr. Kinnear seized the gauntlet thrown down by the prospect of playing a character like Dr. Kearns. Equally crucial to the film's high quality was the casting of Lauren Graham as Bob’s wife, Phyllis Kearns. In less deft hands, Phyllis could have come off as villainous, shrewish or even ancillary to the tale of Bob’s fight. But Ms. Graham strikes just the right balance of wifey-ness and independence, maternalism and spunk, and instead, Phyllis remains front and center, even when she’s not physically present.

The primary weakness of Flash of Genius is that the tale of a man who invented something as small in scope and grandeur as the intermittent windshield wiper and then fought about its ownership in court is an inherently difficult story to dramatize. For better or for worse, windshield wipers simply aren’t all that sexy, and a battle over their speed isn’t exciting to watch, especially when one considers the fact that a particular outcome had to have been achieved in order for the story to merit a cinematic adaptation. The story also lacks the Brockovichian urgency of an intense life-or-death fight against The Man, a nefarious corporate power who is responsible for inflicting grievous physical harm upon hundreds of people. Here, Bob fights an iteration of The Man, Ford, for stealing, which is deplorable, but not nearly as visceral as, e.g., causing cancer in a child. Further, the more significant wrong committed against Bob is not the theft of profits from his invention, but more importantly, the robbing of his dignity, which is a more internal loss, and thus more difficult to translate to the screen.

Similarly, while I understand the filmmakers' choice to hook the audience into the story of Flash of Genius via flashforwarding to Bob's nervous breakdown (note: I don’t consider this to be a spoiler as it is the opening scene of the film), I ultimately found the moment difficult to connect with because it wasn't fraught with tension and drama (for me, anyway). It actually confused me a bit as an introduction to the character and left me in a state of anticipation, waiting for the moment when the story would catch up to where we as an audience had already been taken. That set the tone for the pacing of the rest of the film, and I felt impatient watching it, wanting Bob to get to the next step quicker. It also probably didn't help that it's difficult to spend two hours with a character who is so prickly and at times, fairly unlikeable. Ultimately, though, Flash of Genius is worth your time; it's a well written, well directed, well performed movie that, like the court system portrayed in the film, is just a little slow.