Review of I.Q. (1994) by Basil K — 10 Sep 2007

I.Q. is a pleasant romantic comedy with a twist - the uncle of the young woman the story is about is none other than the great genius Albert Einstein (played brilliantly by the late great Walter Matthau).

Set in the late fifties, the story begins when Catherine Boyd (Meg Ryan) and her fiancée James (Stephen Fry) experience car trouble while riding around in his MG, and seek assistance at a garage. The garage mechanic, Ed Walters (Tim Robbins), sees Catherine and falls hopelessly in love with her. Of course, Ed's aspirations seem to be hopeless. Ed is a very good car mechanic but has no formal college education. But in the spirit of all romantic comedies, Ed feels that the relationship has a chance if he can only meet her and spend some time with her.

When she accidentally leaves her pocket watch at the gas station, he seizes the opportunity to try and see her again by personally returning the watch. Imagine his surprise, when he knocks on the door and Albert Einstein answers.

Surprisingly, Ed and Professor Einstein hit it off immediately. Ed is no scientific genius, but he understands human nature and the importance of having fun in life, two things that Einstein feels are lacking in his niece's life, which has been largely based on trying to emulate her uncle. Einstein is getting on in years and wants to make sure that she is happy and will be looked after properly. When Ed expresses the depth of his feeling, Einstein vows to help set things up. Einstein and his physicist friends -who also dote on Catherine-, decide to try and set Ed and Catherine up as a favor to both of them. It turns out that the car mechanic pretends to be an amateur physicist to impress Meg Ryan. Ed -allegedly- develops a process to use cold fusion to power a spacecraft, which during the cold war and the space-race was extremely important. However, this process didn't exist, Catherine finds out that Ed is a fraud and Ed realizes that he must level with her if they are ever to have a true relationship. The clever and romantic ways that these issues are resolved by Einstein and his cronies and by Ed and Catherine themselves make up the remainder of the story.

The highlight of I.Q. has to be the performance of Walter Matthau as Einstein. He has created an original character that seems totally different from the kind of roles he always played with Jack Lemmon.

Ed and Catherine are engaging as the young lovers and give us good on-screen chemistry, like they were meant for each other.

While this film is by nature light and predictable, you will find it quite enjoyable entertainment.

One of my favorite lines from the movie is in a dialogue between Albert Einstein and Tim Robbins' character Ed. They are discussing how to get Catherine to go out with Ed since Catherine will only go out with intellectual types.

Einstein: "The problem is she would never go out with a guy like you.".

Ed: "Well that's easy. Lend me your brain for a while.".

Einstein: "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?".

Ed: "Now what are the odds of that happening?".