Friday, March 18, 2016

A Brilliant Young Mind 2014


     Nathan Ellis has difficulty connecting with other people and any changes in his life.  His father was killed in a car accident when he was nine years old and this has left a large gap in his life.  His mother, Julie Ellis tries very hard but she doesn’t understand the math that comes easy to him.  He is more comfortable with numbers and a teacher Mr. Humphreys agrees to take Nathan on as a math pupil.  Nathan wins a place on the UK team to attend the International Mathematics Olympiad.  He goes with a group of sixteen other math whizzes from England to Taipei for a summer camp.  In Taipei, he will work with Chinese math students so both groups can hone their skills.  Only six students will be selected from each country to attend the Olympiad so the stakes are high.  Nathan has trouble interacting with the other students and Taipei is sensory overload for his system.
     When Nathan goes to the summer camp, you really wonder how he is going to set aside his food needing to be prime numbers and at certain meal times.  He starts studying the language on the plane and he’s as good at this as he is at math.  Nathan finds it hard to believe that other students do not bully the math teens in Taipei because they are ‘different?’  This film is an interesting study in material that has been covered in other films about excelling in one field but dealing with problematic social maturity issues.  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

111 min, Drama directed by Morgan Matthews with Asa Butterfield, Rafe Spall, Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Jo Yang, Martin McCann, Jake Davies, Alex Lawther, Alexa Davies, Orion Lee.

Note:  Imdb 7.2 out of 10, 86% critic 80% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 1 ½*, Amazon 4.0* out of 5* with 39 reviews.
Special Note:  Filmed in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England and Taiwan.  This film is based on Daniel Lightwing and his story as a mathematician.

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