The Importance of Not Being Too Earnest

Rating: 7/10 (1 September 2003)

This is just a movie, folks, not a case study. As interested as I am in literary, historical, and sociological elements of dramatic films, I am put off by psychoanalysis or tortured deconstruction.
What I liked about this one was Robin Williams' underplaying his role and Matt Damon's totally cold and rigid self-characterization -- apart from the conclusion, that is. There is a good sense of Boston as well.
The premise of the story is questionable as to any sense of consistent authenticity. Antisocial behavior need not be a concomitant of genius, as other recent films about gifted but more or less detached characters seem to take for granted (as does this one). Neither are saccharine catharses inevitable. And the usually fine actor Stellan Skarsgard as the American professor with a French name and a Swedish accent seems miscast. Ben Affleck plays Ben Affleck with a passion, not unusual in a sense but hardly commendable in terms of his overblown popular persona. One wonders indeed how he figures in real life as putative co-author of this fairly decent screenplay.
In short, there are some good moments and good lines -- and that is really what counts, even when the finished whole is less interesting or convincing than the finite parts. Worth seeing. 7 of 10.