FLASH OF GENIUS

US, 2008, 119 minutes, Colour.
Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Dermot Mulroney, Alan Alda, Daniel Roebuck, Mitch Pileggi Jake Abel, Bill Smitrovich.
Directed by Marc Abraham.

The term 'flash of genius' comes from United States Patent Law. The US requires that an inventor be able to show authorities not just that they have created something new and want to protect it but that they can demonstrate what was the moment of the flash of genius when they thought of their invention and followed through.

The particular flash for this film is that for developing intermittent windscreen wipers that kept the windscreen clear even in the worst of rain. Like many inventions we take for granted, someone had to realise the need and develop the technology to achieve it. (My nominee for a Nobel Prize for science or for engineering would be for the inventors of wheels on suitcases.) The man concerned was Robert Kearns, an engineer and lecturer in Detroit who wanted to make his mark with something creative and who (on his way home from Mass where he was an usher and a collection bearer) experienced beating rain in the car with his wife and six children and thought that there could be better windscreen wiper protection.

Some audiences may not feel that they want to spend a lot of time watching experiments to perfect the rate of intermittent wiping. Some may also feel that they are not up to the technical language in the invention and testing phase as well as in the courtroom sequences. However, the screenplay aims at being lay-friendly.

Kearns, who could be rather prickly in his interactions with people, even though he is played by one of the most genial American actors, Greg Kinnear, closely guarded his research and his early attempts to perfect the wipers and their timing. Persuaded by his friend and partner, spare parts entrepreneur, Gil Privick (Dermot Mulroney), he goes into discussions with Ford. All seems to be going well. His wife is supportive. His older sons help with the testing. He is given the green light to produce his invention. Then suddenly Ford opts out.

The film actually opens with Kearns in a state of mental collapse, and the first half of the film shows the invention and Ford years leading to the collapse. The second half of the film is about Kearns and his many years' obsession against the Ford company, not so much interested in money but in getting the acknowledgement for his intellectual property. And obsessive he becomes. The tension with his wife (Lauren Graham) becomes palpable. His oldest son loathes him. He exasperates Privick and his wife, his lawyers (a cameo by Alan Alda) and everyone around him. Rather than settle outside court, he spends years preparing to take Ford to legal justice and conducts his own defence, with the assistance of his now sympathetic children.

The climax, as in so many American films (one might call them Capraesque after those films of Frank Capra which finished with some assertion of the human spirit but which, nevertheless, acknowledged much sadness and bitterness), is in court hearings and important speeches. It is also, to use the cliché, David versus Goliath.

There must be many American inventors who appreciate the fight Kearns conducted against Ford allowing them to rightly claim what they created. However, the film leaves the question as to the enormous emotional cost, loss of family and submerging oneself in an uncertain legal world for so many years. This film is an interesting tribute and a celebration of a blessing, but a mixed blessing.

1. A true story? Invention, protest, campaign, the law and justice? A David and Goliath story?

2. A Detroit story, the city, cars, companies, the motor industry tradition, the place of Ford?

3. The city, the streets, homes, church, offices, warehouses, courts? The musical score?

4. The title, the explanation, patents?

5. Inventions, windscreen wipers and their pace, the car windscreen in the rain, the focus on the eye, on blinking? Robert Kearns and his story about his wedding night, the champagne cork, into his eyes, the loss of sight in his eye, legally blind in that eye? And the insight about blinking and the rate for the wipers?

6. Greg Kinnear as Robert Kearns, the opening, the bus, the kite, his bewilderment, the police, going to the institution?

7. Going back to the original story? Detroit, the 1960s and 1970s? Robert Kearns in himself, a qualified engineer, lecturing at the University, his personality, a touch prickly? His love for Phyllis, the children? At church, devout, his friends, the money collection? Phyllis wanting another child? The breakfast sequence of life in the family?

8. Privick, his partnership, help, the company, the invention, the tests, initially going to Ford, discussions but not allowing the officials near the car? The demonstration? Later, the promise of help with the production, the warehouse, preparing it, Privick and his telling him about what Ford had done? Kearns and
his being upset? The tension between the wives?

9. Kearns, his integrity, inventing, teaching, the patents issue, Privick helping him with the sale of patents and his ownership?

10. The decision about the case, the effect on his family, his obsession? The initial support Phyllis? Weariness over the years, with drawing?

11. Ford, the official coming with the payment, trying to persuade Kearns, Kearns’resistance?

12. The effect, his breakdown, going to the institution, coming home and reaction of the family, some embarrassment?

13. Finding documents, getting research assistants? Getting the specifications?

14. Going to Gregory Lawson and his associates? The enthusiasm, issues of justice? The long investigations, the meal, the champagne, the large payout, Kearns and his refusing, Wilson and his upset?

15. Talking with his son, the son and his refusal, embarrassment? The later discussions as the years passed on his daughter helping, the son changing heart?

16. The decision to defend himself, studies in the library?

17. At the court, the approach of the judge, hearing the experts? Ford and saying that Kearns didn’t invent anything that was not previously invented? His use of Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities and the arrangement of words for something creative?

18. His‘s having to interview himself, the awkwardness of this?

19. Bringing up his mental breakdown, the fact that he could not remember things accurately, especially saying that he was invited to the White House by the Vice President? Kearns and his talk about imagination?

20. The two with their appeals speeches? The decision, the effect?

21. Kearns and his family, Phyllis and her alienation, the justice victory, and using the law? Comparatively small case but with large implications?