40
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
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.
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What are critics saying?
67
Genius may eventually be a little too comfortable with its own formula (unsurprising, considering its full-throated endorsement of Perkins’ traditionalist mien), but in its early going, it captures a little bit of the magic of artistic creation.
75
Washington Post by Ann Hornaday
Genius may be a bit stodgy and safe, but it tells a story of beauty — as it plays out in an improbably fruitful friendship, and as it’s discovered within vast expanses of raw language by a craftsman who was arguably an artist in his own right.
75
Your mileage will vary on Genius, depending on where you place Law’s performance on the irritating/entertaining spectrum and your tolerance for somewhat formulaic tales of creative ego and “The Price of Fame.”
50
Los Angeles Times by Justin Chang
If Genius is a failure — and by the generally unilluminating standards of most mainstream movies about the creative process, I’m not entirely sure that it is — it succeeds in being a noble, even charming one.
50
Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt
The movie — dutifully shot in shades of old-timey sepia — does get better as its staginess falls away, but far too much drama stays on the page.
0
Jude Law gives arguably the worst performance of his career as Wolfe in Genius, the ham-fisted directing debut of noted British theater figure Michael Grandage, bombastically adapted by John Logan (“Gladiator’’) from a biography by A. Scott Berg.
75
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
For those interested in this rich period in American literature, it’s a treat.
75
It makes a convincing argument for viewing Thomas Wolfe's work as a product of the excess and exuberance of the 1920s.
88
Colin Firth is brilliant as the patient, uncompromising and introspective Max Perkins, and the explosive performance by Jude Law as the wild, unpredictable and tragic Thomas Wolfe is one of the greatest triumphs of his career. I was spellbound.