Story about a boy genius has some uneven charm
The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
Rating: ★★½
Starring: Kyle Catlett, Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis
Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Running time: 105 minutes
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 Amélie; gave us a whimsical David-and-Goliath story in 2009’s Micmacs; and wait, he also made Alien: Resurrection?
His latest, based on Reif Larsen’s debut novel, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, is something of a misfire. 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 (10) and prodigious (he invented a perpetual-motion machine) and thus primed to be a bit off- kilter from the 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); and a sister (Niamh Wilson). 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), announcing he’s won a major prize, he decides to leave a note for his family and ride the rails to Washington, D.C., to collect his award.
The film’s charms are occasionally upended by its uneven tone.
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?
Perhaps the book holds some answers. This is a voyage that would be more enjoyable with a guide to explain where the film is going, and where the filmmaker is coming from.