Plot
An amiable garage mechanic, Ed Walters (Tim Robbins), meets Catherine Boyd (Meg Ryan), a beautiful Princeton University mathematics doctoral candidate, as she comes into the garage, accompanied by her stiff and fussy English fiancé, experimental psychology professor James Moreland (Stephen Fry). There is an immediate connection, but she refuses to acknowledge it. Finding a watch she left at the garage, Ed travels to her address and finds himself face to face with Albert Einstein (Walter Matthau), who is Catherine's uncle.
Albert, portrayed as a fun-loving genius who along with his mischievous friends, fellow scientists Nathan Liebknecht (Joseph Maher), Kurt Gödel (Lou Jacobi), and Boris Podolsky (Gene Saks), sees Ed as someone who would be better suited for Catherine. The four of them attempt to help Ed look and sound more like a scientist (i.e., a "wunderkind" in physics), while at the same time trying to convince Catherine that life is not all about the mind but about the heart as well. This is intended to be Einstein's most enduring legacy to his niece as he realizes that he'll not be available for her for very much longer. Catherine eventually sees through the ruse, but falls for Ed anyway. The very last image in the movie is of a smiling Albert Einstein using a small telescope to spy on the two young moonstruck lovers as they take delight in each other's company.
Read more about this topic: I.Q. (film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)