I.Q.
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: I.Q. is both better and worse than
expectation. Its playful look at some of the
greatest minds of the century is not too
unbelievable. But the script and the filming show
real signs of sloppiness. Tim Robbins never
manages to be much of a romantic lead. Rating: 0
(-4 to +4).
If you enjoyed seeing a Tyrannosaurus Rex turned into a big purple plush toy named Barney, you have what it takes to appreciate seeing another giant of bygone science, Albert Einstein, turned into a big, lovable, avuncular pushover in I.Q. In fact, you will see not just Einstein, but Godel and Podolsky as lovable old gentlemen who play Cupid for Einstein's mathematician niece Catherine Boyd (played by Meg Ryan) and an auto mechanic Ed Walters (Tim Robbins). Ed is the last side in a love triangle. Boyd is already planning to marry James Morland (Stephen Fry, who currently plays Jeeves on PBS). Morland isa psychologist who performs sadistic experiments on animal and human subjects and his lab is rarely without the sound of some moaning subject of his experimentation. I think the viewer is not supposed to like Morland. Walters falls in love with Boyd in a chance meeting with her. He begins courting her, and as an experiment, Einstein and some of his cronies decide to help him. They decide they have to make an expert in auto mechanics seem on a par with the experts in quantum mechanics.
The first step is to convince Boyd that Walters is more intelligent than your average auto repairman. This goes disastrously awry and it is not long before Walters is presenting papers on "cold fusion" and interstellar drives to the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies. Soon the joke has taken on national political significance.
Ryan was an interesting choice to play a mathematician and Einstein's niece. While she does not look Jewish as presumably Einstein's niece would, her quirky acting style, somewhat toned down in this performance, could easily be attributable to a sort of nervous energy that someone of high intelligence might have. Robbins, on the other hand, always seems a little snide and at the best of times is never particularly likable in his films. He and Ryan just do not play well off of each other. Surprisingly, Walter Matthau is not too unbelievable as Albert Einstein. Some of his dialogue could be more believable, but the real Einstein apparently did have a child-like, fun-loving nature as exemplified by famous photos of him riding a small bicycle and of him sticking his tongue out to make faces for news cameras. Walter Matthau's brand of sly humor is not an unreasonable depiction.
The real problem with I.Q. is that the script was not ready to film. Particularly late in the story, the storytelling becomes a little cryptic. Ryan's character makes a deduction that is supposedly explained by a comment she makes, but it is not clear how. There are notable anachronisms. The film supposedly takes place prior to Einstein's death, making it April 1955 at the latest, yet the dialogue uses terms like "mind-meld," "cold fusion," and "space race" that were not coined while Einstein was alive. In one sequence we see Walters and Boyd looking at a perfectly clear sky full of stars, yet less than three minutes later the script calls for a pouring rain that lasts the rest of the evening. A sequence at the very end of the film is incredibly contrived. These are all very amateurish script problems that seem to indicate a rush job.
On the other hand, where one would expect the script to most fall down--its depiction of scientists talking shop--is not as bad as it might have been. It is not easy for a non-genius to write dialogue supposedly spoken by a genius. It could be better here, but some of the dialogue does deal with the right sorts of issues. Godel gives an argument that time does not exist that is easily countered and unworthy of the real Godel. But generally the issues discussed are not too unrealistic.
I.Q. is directed by Australian Fred Schepisi, who most recently directed SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION. The film has a nice look with the camera work by Ian Baker, but not a look that bears close examination. Princeton in late March and early April seems unseasonably pleasant. Meg Ryan wears mostly sun dresses at a time of year when most of the rest of us in New Jersey would still be dressing warmly. The cars on the road seem mostly large and with prominent fins. Even if the film is set as late as 1955 this seems unlikely. (As a side note, Fred Schepisi apparently always uses Baker for cinematography. This is their eleventh film together of the eleven that Schepisi has directed and the twelve that Baker has filmed.)
In short, this is a film with some pretty sloppy filmmaking, a romance with little chemistry, and a few pieces of reasonable humor. Mostly it is on the level of a TV situation comedy. I rate it a flat 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
.
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