True Genius

Rating: 10/10 (2 November 1999)

I missed the first 10 minutes of this movie, but I will see it again, buy the book and the video. Why?
Not just because I think Norton, Pitt and Bonham-Carter are fantastic actors. Not just because the movie succeeds as entertainment in every important way, or that it furthers an important critique of modern times however you define the term.
I love this movie and advise all my friends (and my wife) to see it because it made me re-evaluate pivotal events in my life in a way that no movie ever has. Can I relate to the Vietnam War? Not personally. Can I relate to being a Sicilian gangster? Not actually. Can I relate to fistfights, vandalism, defiling restaurant food, hating the trinket culture we seem to be stuck in? You bet!
I think anybody who sees this movie is in the position of that foreign kid working at the convenience store: a gun is put to our head and the message is simple: waste your life and you might as well kill yourself.
That is what art is supposed to do - call you to something higher, not just dip a religious icon in human waste, not just revel in dissipation or envy. Hoorah. I would love to know what Robert Bly thinks of this movie - he is, in a way, its grandaddy. I bet he would love it. And he probably has a mean hook.