Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Just perfect...

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Blistering performances.

Dev Patel is Srinivasa Ramanujan, the young man who is a mathematical genius and works his way up from one of the more culturally devalued areas of India, Madras, to a royal fellowship at Cambridge, under the tutelage of G. H. Hardy, and suffers an early death from tuberculosis.Early scenes shot in India establish his background -- poverty, a loving and beautiful wife, and a demanding and domineering mother. Patel can't keep his nose out of books. The solutions to complicated problems in math come to him unbidden, intuitively. As he later declares, they are put there by God. His entreaties to the august G. H. Hardy, Jeremy Irons, come as a surprise in the post. Patel's solutions are so good that Irons thinks some friend at Trinity College is playing a joke on him. But the letters are real enough, and Irons arranges for Patel's transport to Cambridge in the years before World War I, his future so bright that he has to wear shades. There, Patel is put up in a comfortable room but finds that he's served meat in the mess hall and he's a vegetarian. The necessary shoes are also a nuisance to feet that have never met a shoe. There is prejudice against the Wog. There is his family back in Madras where Ama, who never approved of the marriage, hides her son's letters to his wife and only pretends to mail hers to him. This may strike us as pretty nasty but mainly because we don't have the strong extended families that India had in 1913. Marriages were still arranged by families and wives knew their place in the household. Their job was to sit and fan the flies away while the husband ate, and then the wives got the leftovers. The tradition was called varna, with a retroflex "r". I mention all this only to suggest that the wife was not as powerful a figure as the mother.And now, if someone will just help me down from behind this lectern -- Thank you. See, the problem is that Patel's solutions come to him from God and Irons, his sponsor and mentor, is an atheist who doesn't believe in OUR god let alone a multitude of many-armed dancing figurines and reincarnation. ("Maybe you'll come back as a pigeon turd.") Irons won't be satisfied in Patel's solutions unless Patel can come up with proofs instead of epiphanies."Proof" in math, as I recall from high school geometry, goes a little like this. Somebody presents an argument that, let's say, at the very bottom of the ocean there are strong creatures adapted to the monumental pressure and the freezing temperatures and utter darkness. It's an elegant argument, showing how physiology can keep fish blood from freezing, how an organism may evolve to resist the pressure, and so forth. It makes sense. But the proof of the argument lies in catching one of those organisms.Patel's solutions are "jumpy and very wild," as a prof once described my theorizing in a sociology class. Irons demands the proofs. He has to, if they intend the work to be published without being ridiculed. It's a source of continuing conflict between them -- Patel and his god, and Irons and his proof. As you can see, the difficulty takes us beyond combinations and permutations into the realm of the unknowable. Of course, the two of them face a superordinate enemy. Except for a couple of fellow at Trinity, like Littlewood and Bertrand Russell, they are both bludgeoned by the staff. Irons has introduced Baboo here, and Patel himself is swarthy and uppity. In the end, the two have become close friends, although, in the usual manner of U-C Brits, Irons is unable to be very expressive about it.The performances are all pretty good. I'm happy that Patel was cast as Srinivasa Ramanujan because he's so unprepossessing, not particularly handsome and sporting a pair of big ears. At that, he's more presentable than the real Ramanujan. Irons is always a pleasure to watch, except maybe for that Die Hard feature in which he was forced to play a villain with a German accent.The narrative can't avoid some of the usual elements of the biographical movie. Every protagonist implies its antagonist. There must be demons to overcome otherwise what the hell kind of a movie are we talking about? The heroic figure -- math genius, athlete, politician, singer, dancer, or pop icon -- travels along a monotonic path to the top of the heap, gets there, and then STAYS there? So Ramanujan and Hardy must have their Fellows at Cambridge and one has in addition family troubles and tuberculosis. So the unavoidable elements are there, yes, but rather nicely handled. Nobody's head is wrenched off. I enjoyed it.

I've enjoyed Dev Patel in a number of films (especially "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel") and in cable's "The Newsroom". I thought he had potential. But with this film -- which is about a topic I hate -- mathematics -- I thought the old saying (slightly paraphrased) was appropriate: Instead of "Today you are a man", "Today you are an actor." To me, there is one problem with this film. It's difficult to relate to the story since the average film-goer doesn't have the slightest idea what these mathematicians are doing. I'm quite well educated...but what they're going means nothing to me.And so, most of us can only relate to half the film -- the human story. And that is something that most of us can relate to. Prejudice. Family intrigue. How to accept another human being. Giftedness. And other human themes. And it is here that both Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons shine. And, I also have to give a nod to a British actor that I usually care for (perhaps because of the parts I've seen him in) -- Toby Jones -- whom I found quite endearing here. Devika Bhise, as Patel's wife, is also very good. The other actors...mostly British...do their jobs well, but don't really stand out.But while I consider this a sort of break-out movie for Dev Patel, I want to focus for a moment on Jeremy Irons. I look at "actors" like (well, I'll pick on Tom Cruise here as one example) Tom Cruise, and I know that when it comes to the craft of acting, they can't hold a candle to someone like Jeremy Irons. He was never a matinée "star" in the normal sense of the word, but throughout his career he has demonstrated an understanding of the real craft of acting...and he does it again here.If you are a serious movie-goer, even if (like me) you're not into mathematics, I recommend this film.

Don't miss this movie. Its a master piece of a divine mathematician. He made India proud by his work in mathematics and opened windows for world to recognize his work and do something good for the people. Purely Indian.Time worthy. Worth watching this biography.Its motivating movie. Thanks

'THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY': Three Stars (Out of Five)A British biopic about a brilliant mathematician from India, named Srinivasa Ramanujan, who made history in mathematical theories, during World War I. The film stars Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Devika Bhise and Toby Jones. It was directed and written by Matthew Brown, and it's based on the book, of the same name, by Robert Kanigel. The movie performed decently in indie theaters, at the Box Office, and it's received mixed reviews from critics. I thought it was OK. The story begins at the turn of the twentieth century, when Srinivasa Ramanujan (Patel) was extremely poor, and still living in Madras, India. His exceptional mathematical skills became very useful to his employers there, who began using him for multiple accounting jobs. They later encouraged him to go to college. A well known mathematician, at Cambridge University, named G.H. Hardy (Patel), then heard about Srinivasa (and he became very impressed by what he heard), so he invited him to come study under him. Srinivasa took him up on the offer, while he also married his girlfriend (Bhise), and he later became a renowned expert in mathematical theories, thanks to Hardy's guidance. The movie is, how can I say this nicely, boring. I'm sure there's a very inspiring, and quite interesting, story that could have been told, but the filmmakers failed to do so. It's a shame too, because Patel and Irons are both really good actors. I'm sure they were both hoping they were working with a much better director, and screenwriter. I'm also sure the real Srinivasa Ramanujan, and G.H. Hardy, deserved a much better film adaptation of their story!Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M9osPwjfbM