Review #1
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-man-who-knew-infinity/review/
The Man Who Knew Infinity review: 'by the numbers'
Telegraph (Tim Robey) 3 out of five stars
Tim Robey 17 September 2015 • 5:08pm
Actors: Jeremy Irons, Toby Jones, Dev Patel, Stephen Fry
Director: Matt Brown
Genre: Biography, Drama
Synopsis: After an impoverished upbringing in Madras, India, Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar gets into Cambridge University and becomes a pioneer in mathematical theories. Set during WWI.
Release Date TBC
Duration 114 min
Rating TBC
Country UK
Jeremy Irons jollies up this formulaic period biopic, starring Dev Patel as an Indian maths genius facing racism in English academia Dev Patel, solving equations. It’s not the most immediately enticing hook for a prestige drama, whether or not The Imitation Game has managed to pique anyone’s interest in tweedy wartime biopics about troubled maths geniuses. The Man Who Knew Infinity is practically the same formula scribbled on a blackboard, a true story brimming with noble intentions to the point where you feel guilty resisting it.
Knuckling down to a considerably more rigorous intellectual challenge than he faced in Slumdog Millionaire, Patel plays the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, whose research in the field of number theory took English academe by storm around the time of the First World War.
Self-taught but unemployed and virtually living rough in Madras, he reached out, via India-based civil engineer Sir Francis Spring (a dry then welcoming three-minute cameo from Stephen Fry) to Cambridge theorist GH Hardy (Jeremy Irons), who initially suspected a prank: who was this no-name Indian who claimed he could “give meaning to negative values of the gamma function”, anyway?
In time, the working relationship between Hardy and Ramanujan, which gives first-time writer-director Matthew Brown his dramatic core, became hugely important to both of them. Hardy, a confirmed bachelor, even went so far as to call their collaboration “the one romantic incident in my life”.
Brown’s script, itching for conflict, plays up the institutional racism of other Trinity College fellows unwilling to credit the originality of Ramanujan’s proofs, and generally raining on his parade. Every 10 minutes or so, another supporting player gets wheeled on to dent his confidence with ethnic slurs or scoff at the very idea of his so-called brilliance.
Patel is a difficult actor to have complete faith in, and he does way too much clenching of his jaw in suppressed indignation, welling eyes darting left and right as he absorbs the latest blow. That said, his very lightweight-ness gives him purchase on this role – coming across as overawed by all the marble busts and gowns and rival egos, once he’s moved to Cambridge, is rather a natural mode for him to stake out.
It actually has the makings of a touching performance, but Brown’s film can’t help but sanctify Ramanujan to a needless and damaging degree. He’s literally crowned by a halo of sunlight at one point – the star of his own hagiography and recipient of endless great PR from all those dons, like the unfailingly reasonable John Littlewood (Toby Jones).
If what you need from this film is Dev Patel sprinting through main quad at least once with a sheaf of papers clutched in his fist, consider yourself in resolutely safe hands. The direction is run of the mill, the music’s a bore, and the story doesn’t go anywhere too surprising. Watching the increasingly bloodshod Patel fail to eat for a good hour of screen time gives us a fairly clear idea where we’re headed.
So thank goodness for his principal co-star. With this and his beaky architect in High-Rise, some sort of late-career Jeremy Irons Age is unexpectedly upon us. It’s a hoot to be reminded what jolly company he can be in movies, and what life he can bring to an awful lot of dusty armchair exposition by summoning more engagement than was even necessary. He has a flashy scene strolling through Trinity under a black umbrella, even though the sun’s out: Hardy confessed himself an atheist, but his odd superstitions, convictions and quirks give Irons a field day.
At all the film’s emotional peaks, Hardy struggles to meet Ramanujan’s gaze, retreating from eye contact into a stricken, hidden place that feels true to a certain brainy English personality. He makes you realise how excessively many actors – Patel is one – rely on their eyes as coercive windows to the soul. Irons’s Hardy steals this film away from its ostensible hero, in part because pulling the shutters down makes him that much harder to know.
Review #2
http://news24us.info/article/432423/dev-patel-all-is-forgiven-for-chappie-with-the-man-who-knew-infinity
Dev Patel, all is forgiven for ‘Chappie’ with ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’
It hasn’t been easy to follow the lead actor from a film like “Slumdog Millionaire,’’ which began its march to the Best Picture Oscar at the Toronto Film Festival seven years ago. For Indian star Dev Patel, it’s meant the dire likes of “The Last Airbender’’ and “Chappie.’’
The appealing actor has finally found a worthy role as Indian math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, without whose groundbreaking work we might not have been enjoying last year’s biopics about Stephen Hawking and Alan Turing.
“The Man Who Knew Infinity’’ may not be in the same rarified category as “The Theory of Everything’’ and “The Imitation Game,’’ but it’s a thoroughly engrossing story about an uneducated clerk from Madras, India, whose brilliance created a sensation at Cambridge University in 1914.
Ramanujan’s emotionally repressed mentor (Jeremy Irons’ best work in years) challenges the young man’s purely intuitive approach to mathematics and fights to get his protégé a key fellowship over the opposition of his bigoted fellow professors.
Patel has his most rewarding role since “Slumdog’’ as the passionate Ramanujan, who leaves his wife behind in India and risks his health to prove his critics wrong, leaving a lasting mark on the field. The sterling supporting cast includes such British stalwarts as Toby Jones, Stephen Fry and Jeremy Northam.
“The Man Who Knew Infinity,’’ which had its world premiere in Toronto, does not yet have a US distributor — but it shouldn’t have trouble finding one.
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. (Charles M. Schulz)
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