NOT QUITE PRODIGIOUS ENOUGH
Story of boy genius has uneven charms and things get muddled
A new film from French director Jean- Pierre Jeunet is always cause for hopeful anticipation. This is the director who introduced North Americans to Audrey Tautou in 2001’ s Amelie; gave us a whimsical David- andGoliath story in 2009’ s Micmacs; and — wait, he also made Alien: Resurrection?
Anyway, his latest, based on Reif Larsen’s debut novel, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, is something of a misfire for the eccentric filmmaker. Perhaps it’s because he excels at drawing weird, childlike performances from his oddball regular performers, one of whom ( Dominique Pinon) shows up here in a secondary role.
But the protagonist in this one, as the title suggests, is young ( just 10) and prodigious ( he just invented a perpetual- motion machine) and thus primed to be a bit off- kilter from the get- go.
But what a get- go. Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet ( Kyle Catlett from TV’s The Following) lives on a Montana ranch so vibrant it looks to have been coloured with crayons. Unusual for a 10- year- old genius, T. S. is misunderstood by his family: a distant entomologist mother ( Helena Bonham Carter); an even more distant cowboy father ( Callum Keith Rennie), whose den looks like Disney’s Frontierland; and a sister ( Niamh Wilson) who pays attention only to denigrate him. Even his teacher berates him for having a “superiority complex.” T. S. counters that he has been published in Discover magazine.
Thus when the boy gets a call from the Smithsonian Institution’s G. H. Jibsen ( Judy Davis, having a ball with the role), announcing that he’s won a major prize, he decides to leave a simple note for his family and ride the rails to Washington, D. C., to collect his award.
T. S. holds himself responsible for the death of his brother, a kid who liked guns more than was good for him. So in some ways this journey to Washington is really more of a guilt trip.
But it’s also Jeunet’s Rockwellian paean to the U. S. countryside, as our protagonist rolls past white picket fences, buffalo and amber waves of grain. ( Ironically, the film was shot mostly in Canada.) In a stroke of luck, T. S.’ s train holds an RV on a flatbed, allowing the boy to freighthop in style.
But the film’s charms are occasionally upended by its uneven tone, not least when young T. S. swings from fearful to confident, naive to mature, from one scene to the next. He can’t help being young, but the prodigious nature of his personality isn’t always believable.
Things get even more muddled when he reaches his destination and when Jibsen, who had been expecting an adult, learns his true identity. Does she want to kidnap him? Adopt him? Subject him to medical experiments? The jumpy nature of the final scenes, when Rick Mercer shows up as an oily talk- show host, suggests something may have been lost in editing.
Perhaps the book holds some answers. This is a voyage that would be more enjoyable with a guide to explain just where the film is going, and where the filmmaker is coming from.