J.D. Hildebrand

Tragically miscast with a grubby little script and poor direction. This movie disappointed me so much. Jude Law botched the Southern accent and his portrayal of Wolfe was pure scenery-chewing. Firth is one of our best actors, but he was apparently told that the way to reflect the editor's preference to be out of the spotlight was to act wooden and entirely without emotion, even while sacrificing family time to a book he believes in. Firth faithfully rose to the challenge and acted like a stone for most of the movie - but that can't be an accurate or believable depiction of the editor of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Wolfe. The side-story with Nicole Kidman was underdeveloped and grubby. According to the movie's logic, Kidman represented a father figure to a fickle Wolfe who swapped her out for Perkins, who was swapped out in turn for an editor at another publishing house. Kidman's character was unsympathetic and impossible to believe. Don't blame her - it was the script. Passages of Wolfe's writing - the opening of Look Homeward, Angel, and even his deathbed letter to Perkins - were subjected to pointless editing, saving a few syllables because someone in charge of this wrongheaded production decided an extra half-second would bore modern audiences. I had high hopes for this movie, but within a few minutes I couldn't help maintaining my awareness of it AS a movie; I couldn't get lost in the story because it was presented in such a hamhanded way. So much of this drama was presented with tired old sit-com tropes. What a terrible waste of time and money.