And while the film has received critical acclaim, it achieves the emotion needed in the film not through grand performances, but through subtle means, as described by Abraham.
“You can’t make people emotional by making big emotional scenes, you touch people by restraint … if a scene doesn’t play, you can’t put enough music in it to make it soar.”
“I believe that in a film, if you have a theme, every scene should have somewhere in it that theme, it doesn’t mean that it's overt, it might be in the smallest action. And we tried to make sure in each one of these scenes with that sense of injustice, or principle, or cost was always in at some point,” said Abraham.
Flash of Genius is a true story about Robert Kearns, an engineer who develops the idea and patents the intermittent windshield wiper only to have the idea stolen by the Ford Motor Company.
Kearns goes on to battle Ford and take on the financial and physiological difficulties of being wronged, testing his relationship with his wife and children.
Kinnear, who starred as the somewhat eccentric Kearns, says it is difficult to watch this character at times, for the audience truly wants him to achieve some sense of satisfaction, yet he fails to compromise to any end that might achieve it.
“He seemed like a decent guy, but clearly, in the script he becomes increasingly stubborn and untrusting and uncompromising and kind of obsessive, and I think those manifestations came out of what happened to him.”
“I think that what had been taken from him was kind of causing this behavior that is increasingly unforgivable in the story at the same time thought I always found myself wanting to bat for him, I wanted him to find satisfaction and I think it is kind of an ambiguous ending. I am not sure that he ever does, and I know from talking to his family I am not sure that they would agree that he ever found it.”
Justice ‘Reality Check’
Alan Alda, who plays Kearn’s Lawyer in the film, enjoyed being the reality check for the Kinnear character, as he shares he had to come to that realization early in his career himself.
“What I loved about this, especially in the scene that the three of us have together, where Greg’s character finds out that you don’t get justice in an ideal way in a situation like this, you don’t get them to admit they harmed you … you just get money. “
“And his character is a little offended by that, and I remember when I read that scene in the script I remembered the day when I was in my twenties when I had that same lesson I had that same thing said to me, somebody had wronged me and I was about to go to court and I wanted it to spelled out that they had wronged me, and instead of that the lawyer said no no no you get money … that’s justice. And it was a horrible realization.
“But that is the stark reality.”
Alda, who has won continued admiration for his performances decade after decade, went on to praise the first time Abraham and the film despite his small role in the film.
“As you watch the movie you get a sense of sure-handedness, confidence that the director is imparting to these scenes and these shots. Every shot is just long enough and it give you a feeling of something each time, nothing is perfunctory, and it is a wonderful job he had done, I am really happy to be a part of this movie, I am only a small of it, but I am very happy to be a part of it,” said Alda.
Flash of Genius opens on nationwide on October 3.
