Flash of Genius (***1/2)

This movie’s subject, Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear), is barely a footnote in history, but an illustrative one. He is less known as the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper than for the lengthy legal battle he fought to be acknowledged as such.

Kearns, an engineer, is both selfish and completely right in his fight with the Ford Motor Company, which consumes him to the point that it threatens his relationship with his wife (Lauren Graham) and children. That’s the contradiction explored here and what makes it a cut above the typical underdog drama. The screenplay by Philip Railsback does a good job of summarizing the history of Kearns’s invention and his crusade for recognition. A non-lawyer will have some idea of why it can take so long for the wheels of justice to turn. It seems more authentic in this respect than the still-worthwhile North Country, the most similar film I can think of. (That was about sex discrimination.)

There was only one time watching this movie where I said, no, I can’t imagine it happened like that, and that was when Kearns apparently learns his invention was stolen only when he drives down the highway and sees someone using it. About the only other inauthentic thing is the timeline, which the movie slightly fudges, along with Kearns’s age. This is no big deal, but a stronger period feel would have have made the story even richer. Despite the title, the movie is not at all flashy, and so not similar to Tucker: The Man and His Dream, another automobile-related biography, but of a larger-than-life sort of individual. Here, Kearns is a both an everyman character, lately a specialty for Kinnear, and a man of extraordinary persistence. The portrayal is sympathetic, but some people may find him foolishly uncompromising. In any case, they will wonder how far they would go to defend a principle, and be reminded that, no matter what decision they would make, something must be sacrificed, even if it is only time. Thus the movie is bittersweet, and therefore, to me, unexpectedly moving.

IMDB link

viewed 9/11/08 (screening at Ritz East); reviewed