The Man Who Knew Infinity

Dir: Matthew Brown

2016

***

The subject matter in The Man Who Knew Infinity may be similar to that of Gus Van Saint's 1997 hit Good Will Hunting but in my opinion, the only thing that both films have in common, other than maths, is that they are both a bit dull and overrated. Matthew Brown's second feature film, made fifteenth years after his debut, is formulaic and has many of the clichés you'd expect from a period piece. However, the performances from Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel do make up for many of the misgivings, historical inaccuracies and predictable formula but I do think it's a shame that such a great story about such important but relatively unknown people didn't have a bit more life to it. Like I said, the performances are brilliant, really two of the year’s best but the two lead actors are almost like salmon swimming upstream against current of tiresome script and two-dimensional characters. Stephen Fry, Jeremy Northam and Toby Jones are all good as always but some of the smaller characters spoil the film's integrity by the fact that they are almost cartoon versions of the people they are representing. The maths goes over the heads of pretty much everyone who sees it, indeed if it didn't there wouldn't be a story to tell, but treating the audiences like complete idiots isn't a way of getting them on your side. I felt that the script and pace of the film was slow and obvious, everything was milked until what was left was a shrivelled up version of what should have been. It's not an easy story to tell I'm sure but Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel were so good, with a better script this film could have been one of the most successful films of the year, which it deserved to be. Unfortunately, it tried too hard to be the best, it looked like it was intended as award fodder, and its late release for such a film suggests that the producers released it wouldn't have a chance. It's incredibly frustrating to see a film that gets so much right and has two impeccable performances driving it uphill, for it to be spoiled by a ridiculous pandering to an audience who probably weren't interested in seeing it in the first place.