There is a stereotype that academics are stuffy people, uninterested in anything but their research.  In the course of my academic career, I met a few that fit that description.  Like all stereotypes, though, while that image might apply to some professors, it does not apply to all.  For example, during the first two years of my Ph.D. program at Loyola University Chicago, one of my mentors hosted an end of the year dance party for the history department faculty and graduate students.  All that I will add about these gatherings is that I was surprised by some of what I saw going on, but that was because I believed those stereotypes.  Along those same lines, I love seeing images of male and female religious enjoying something other than prayers.  Like those in academia, monks, nuns, and priests have a vocation that is their primary function.  At the same time, there is nothing wrong with rounding out life with some other, extra-curricular activities.  This is part of the reason why I enjoyed today’s film, I.Q. (1994), especially since one of the main characters is arguably the most famous smart person of all time, Albert Einstein (Walter Matthau).

Instead of beginning with Albert, we start with his fictional niece, Catherine Boyd (Meg Ryan), a woman who, like her uncle, is blessed with a high I.Q.  That stands for intelligence quotient, by the way, if you are keeping score at home.  She is driving down the road with Dr. James Moreland (Stephen Fry), a professor of psychology and her fiancé.  He is talking at her about his plans for their marriage when their car experiences engine trouble.  Serendipitously, they are within range of a mechanic’s garage, and pull in as the motor is dying.  Its three employees had been diagnosing the problem by sound as the vehicle approached, and it is Ed Walters (Tim Robbins) who is sent to assist.  When Ed sees Catherine, he has what he later says is a moment when he sees a future with her all in an instant.  In other words, it is love at first sight.  Yet, though there is something to the way she looks at him, she is polite but sweet as she calls a taxi for her and Dr. Moreland.  On the way out, she inadvertently leaves a pocket watch given her by her late father, who had left his daughter in Albert’s care.  Since she had left an address for herself, Ed takes it upon himself to hand deliver the heirloom to Catherine.  Upon knocking on the door, Ed is greeted by the famous physicist.  Ed is a bit of a hobby scientist himself, so the encounter is a thrill.  There is more to his enthusiasm, though, that impresses Albert.  What also catches Albert’s interest is Ed’s evident infatuation with Catherine.  This is great news for Albert, who refers to his niece’s fiancé as the rat catcher, owing to Dr. Moreland’s incessant experimentations on rodents.  With the help of Albert’s three ever-present colleagues, they go in search of Catherine.  Upon eventually finding her, she is somewhat touched by Ed’s gesture, but she gently reminds him that she is engaged.  In talking about it afterwards with Albert, Ed believes the problem is that the mechanic is not good enough for a mind like hers.  Albert sees it differently.  Because he dotes on his niece, he wants to see her to be happy instead of tying herself to the dull Dr. Moreland because she thinks it her duty.  It should also be added that Dr. Moreland infantilizes Catherine, which is a form of misogyny.  Thus, Albert determines that he must help Ed look and sound more like the kind of person to which Catherine would be attracted.  After inviting the young man over to plot with the four scientists, they sit him down and discuss different theories as Catherine enters the room.  When she asks why Ed is present, he says it is to discuss his notion for a cold fusion space rocket that would allow mankind to travel between the planets.  Because Catherine has been in meetings with Charles Bamberger (Charles Durning), the co-founder of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, she knows there is a serious desire for such advancements.  With Albert and his friends squirming in their chairs, she arranges for Ed to present his so-called findings at a symposium in seven days.  Now Ed is nervous, but seeing her in the crowd for his presentation allows him to get through his paper, which is actually one that Albert had produced a few decades ago.  It is at this point that Dr. Moreland begins to get jealous.  Thinking there is no way a mere mechanic could display this level of intelligence, he arranges for Ed to undergo a series of tests to prove his supposed genius.  With some help from the four physicists, Ed passes them all.  Still, he is beginning to get nervous about the lying, especially with all the attention his “work” is getting.  None of this matters to Albert because his main goal is to get Catherine and Ed together.  Albert seemingly has his triumph when he takes Catherine and Ed sailing.  Dr. Moreland had been invited to come, but the other three physicists mess with his laboratory and he is detained.  During their trip, Catherine declares his love for Ed.  It is now time for Ed to admit the truth, but before that can happen, he is visited by President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Keene Curtis), who wants to announce a working cold fusion engine before the Soviet Union does the same thing.  Further, using her own skills as a mathematician, Catherine figures out that cold fusion is impossible, thus making Ed a fraud.  Hence, with the press gathered for the big reveal, Albert goes to the podium and says that the whole thing had been a hoax to expose the Russians.  Everyone treats this as a triumph, but Catherine remains angry with Ed.  The attitude is changed a bit when Albert nearly faints walking out of the conference, and has to be taken to the hospital.  Once there, Ed formerly apologizes to Catherine before departing.  Albert is recovered enough to see Catherine off, and he arranges for her car to break down right where Ed is watching a comet named after her dad.

Like so many romantic comedies, I.Q. ends with a kiss.  This one is presented as the answer to an ongoing philosophical debate among the four scientists, one that has implications for Christianity.  Their conversation is part of the film’s open, and it pertains to whether everything is chance or planned.  In Christian terms, at the most basic level, it becomes a question of whether God exists.  Essentially, a universe of randomness would suggest there is no God, whereas ordered events means there is a God.  There is nothing new about these ideas.  The way the film begins seems to lean towards the former of those two positions.  The car in which Catherine is traveling just happens to break down in front of the shop where the man she is destined to love works.  On the surface, this appears so random that it could not be the work of a God who intervenes in our lives in a personal way.  I used the phrase “a God who intervenes” in an intentional manner.  The real-life Einstein believed in the idea of God, but not one who involved Himself with us.  Again, this is not new.  During the Enlightenment, in the early nineteenth century, William Paley, an Anglican clergyman no less, came up with the thought that God was a sort of “watchmaker.”  If you think of the universe as having been created by God, he saw it as a clock that God made, wound up, set, and has largely left it alone since.  That is not Catholic teaching.  God personally cares about our lives and helps us in more ways for which we could ever account.  In a sense, He behaves a bit like Albert does in the movie.  Albert sees what Catherine and Ed cannot: how right they are for each other.  While his methods are not perfect as God’s would be, Albert does successfully nudge the two lovebirds towards one another.  God does it so much better, and in obvious and not-so-obvious fashions.  We tend to rightly give Him thanks for the moments we do see, like meeting the person with whom we fall in love.  We should also give Him thanks for that which we do not see, which arguably sustains us to an even greater degree.

As for I.Q., there is nothing wrong with seeing it.  For a film that is rated PG, I was somewhat shocked by the amount of innuendo, especially early in the story.  At the same time, this does not become a distraction.  Finally, it is fun to see Matthau as Einstein, who was a lot more cheerful than as history might remember him.