Erin Brockovich and Flash of Genius, two films surrounding legal matters, have some obvious common traits. One, like stated, they both revolve around a legal situation. Both are about a person’s fight for justice, but Erin Brockovich was about restoring ethics, while Flash of Genius was focused on legal rights and infringement.
Erin Brockovich was about a woman’s fight to end a company’s abuse of a small town’s citizens via their water supply. The company had been dumping harmful waste in a town’s water supply, thinking it would go unnoticed. The people were unknowingly drinking dangerous water, which had dramatic effects on their health. She aimed to bring them justice.
Flash of Genius, however, was about a man, Robert Kearns, who was fighting for ownership of the patent for his original idea, which was stolen by Ford. He patented the intermittent windshield wiper, and presented in to Ford, who asked him to arrange pricing information. Kearns offered them this, and a sample unit. He was never contacted back, and realized that the company was mass-producing his original creation. Kearns then embarks on a quest for legal rights to his patented idea.
I felt Flash of Genius had a more saddening tone; and the overall story of his life went downhill hard, and at the very end it turned up. For Robert Kearns, while in the end he was awarded millions in court, he lost his family for some time, his marriage, his spirit, and was institutionalized briefly. This was on top of his already existing struggle with blindness in one eye.
Erin Brockovich, meanwhile, was serious and sad throughout, slightly more dramatic towards the climax, then improved quite a bit. Erin had a constant toil, but she didn’t suffer equally. Her strive ended with a large settlement as well, but the only remaining struggles were those of the people she defended, not her personally.
Flash of Genius, in my opinion, showed a more grueling fight for legal rights. It showed a harsher reality of the cost of getting justice, and side affects that come along the way. It makes you kind of question why justice is worth it, but then again, there’s that old saying: ‘If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.’
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