Genius: Colin Firth as the editor who pushed Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law) to genius

Urggh. I hate that I missed something as intriguing as this! A movie starring Colin Firth as a literary editor Max Perkins at Scribner, Jude Law as author Thomas Wolfe with Nicole Kidman as the woman who believes in him and Laura Linney as Perkin's wife. We have Hemingway on screen played by Dominic West and where Hemingway goes, Fitzgerald is sure to follow. Here he's played by Guy Pearce. Why didn't anybody tell me? Why didn't you? The film is based on a biography by Pulitzer Prize winning A. Scott Berg directed by Tony-winner Michael Grandage from a script by John Logan. At one point Sean Penn was apparently in talks to play Perkins but the part went to Firth. 

The book, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, was written by A. Scott Berg back in 1978. At the time it was a bestseller and the winner of the National Book Award. It's been recently re-released and sounds like a fascinating read. Here's what they pub. says about it. Some of you more literary types might be aware of Perkins, a highly respected book editor, but I was not. Perkins, not Wolfe, is the titular Genius. The simple one word—Genius—is a much better title, don't you think?

The driving force behind such literary superstars as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe, Max Evarts Perkins was the most admired book editor in the world. From the first major novel he edited(Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise(to the last(James Jones's bestselling From Here to Eternity(Perkins revolutionized American literature. Perkins was tirelessly committed to nurturing talent no matter how young or unproven the writer. 

This sounds like an unbelievable treat for my fellow book lovers and my fellow writers. As insecure a writer as I am, most days I'm also pretty realistic about being a hack while deep down I secretly harbor the belief that if only a good editor could get her hands on my work, I could be a genius too. I don't think I'm alone there. The movie, a small film which won't be playing everywhere, just opened here in the states on June 1oth. I see several opening dates around the world—check this imdb list for a date in your country—but nothing for the UK yet. How strange! 

Let's watch the trailer, shall we?

I always think southern accents are tough to do, they already sound so exaggerated in comparison to the mainly flat American accent with a few assorted regional accents sounding almost comical in 2016. Therefore Jude Law sounds odd to me here, his accent is so big, but I'll give him a pass on account of the bigness primarily being up to Thomas Wolfe's personality. Firth is always finer than fine.

Here in LA, Genius playing at the ArcLight Hollywood as well as the Landmark in Westwood where one of my besties—and a fellow writer—lives. I see a movie date in my future. 

Here's my latest piece of writing from my other blog, Sim Carter: Memoir + More. It's about the time I was working on 1980's HBO series Tales from the Crypt and got lunch for Robert De Niro. Not exactly Thomas Wolfe's great literary themed work, lol.