海角大神

Movies about prodigies, especially math and science prodigies, are聽often also about triumphing over disabilities. Think of聽鈥淎 Beautiful Mind鈥� and 鈥淭he Theory of Everything.鈥� Partly this is because聽if the films were just about the science, most people in the audience would聽quickly nod off.聽
鈥淎 Brilliant Young Mind鈥� doesn鈥檛 go that route. Although it鈥檚 about a聽British teenage math prodigy diagnosed with pronounced autism, the film doesn鈥檛聽skimp on the math. The mind of young Nathan Ellis (Asa Butterfield)聽works in patterns, and we can see how this affects every aspect of his life,聽from working out complex equations to insisting that his dinner contain聽only a prime number of shrimp balls.
Nathan is a fictional character, although he and his world are derived, in聽part, from the documentary 鈥淏eautiful Young Minds,鈥� also directed by聽Morgan Matthews, who makes his dramatic debut here. Like that film,聽this new one centers on the International Mathematical Olympiad, for聽which Nathan qualifies, and for which he travels to Taiwan for the final聽showdown.
The film, refreshingly, is less concerned with how Nathan performs in聽the competition than in how he navigates his way through the bramble of聽human interactions leading up to it. As a child, the only adult he truly聽connected with was his father (Martin McCann), who was killed in a car聽accident when Nathan (played in the early scenes by Edward Baker-Close) was 9. His doting mother, Julie (Sally Hawkins), has struggled to聽raise him alone and has done so without a great deal of success. He flinches from her聽touch.聽
Hawkins gives a performance of remarkable grace and sensitivity. Julie聽dotes on her child despite being rebuffed at practically every turn. In a聽way, she is as profoundly concerned with patterns as Nathan is, but what聽she is seeking is a way of understanding how his mind works so that he may聽grow to love her. Hawkins has always been good at playing聽distraught women who were slightly, comically askew (as in Mike Leigh鈥檚聽鈥淗appy-Go-Lucky.鈥�) Here she brings a greater depth. Hawkins' scenes with Butterfield聽are uplifting, sorrowful, and poignant, all at once.
Nathan finds a sort of surrogate father in Martin Humphreys (Rafe聽Spall), a former Olympiad star who聽makes a meager living as a math coach聽because of his battles with multiple聽sclerosis. Martin comes on聽surly but he warms to Nathan, and to Julie as well. On both counts, the聽feeling is somewhat reciprocated without the film going all gooey on us.聽
Somewhat less restraint is demonstrated by Matthews, and his聽screenwriter, James Graham, when Nathan takes up in Taiwan with a聽fellow Olympian, Zhang Mei (Jo Yang), whose puppyish affection for聽him he finds both intriguing and bewildering. I was glad that one of my聽favorite actors, Eddie Marsan, playing the hyperactive Olympiad coach, was聽on hand to stanch the treacle from the confab.聽
Asa Butterfield has a wide-eyed, slightly vacant quality that works well聽here, as it also did in 鈥淭he Boy in the Striped Pajamas鈥� and 鈥淗ugo.鈥澛燦athan鈥檚 autism is not something the filmmakers sentimentalize. His聽disturbances are real, but so is his passion for math. It is that passion,聽shared by his coaches and, in her own way, his mother, that paradoxically聽ends up offering him a way into a world where mathematics is only one聽mansion among many. Grade:聽B+ (Unrated.)