The Man Who Knew Infinity English Movie

Feature Film | 2016 | Biopic, Drama
Critics:
Audience:
The journey of Srinivas Ramanujan from his poor home in Madras to his fellowship at Trinity College in Cambridge is beautifully captured. The professors Hardy and Littlewood make Mathematics look like such a delight. Jeremy Irons overshadows everything, Dev Patel included. There is that awful 'exotic India' hangover, but the movie pleases all parts of you, even if you earned poor marks in maths in school...
Apr 28, 2016 By Manisha Lakhe


Jeremy Irons as professor Hardy who guided and mentored S.Ramanujan at Cambridge is sublime. His inability to communicate on a human level and his rigorous training of Ramanujan from being an intuitive mathematician to a systematic workhorse who can prove his points is a wonderful thing to watch on screen. There is a chemistry between Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel (who plays Ramanujan) which is phenomenal.


Think about it, how many people do you know who care so much about someone else much younger than them, knowing much more about the subject? That professor Hardy could have easily reacted like every other academician and killed Ramanujan's hopes and dreams, but he doesn't. The world wouldn't have known the genius of Ramanujan had professor Hardy been selfish. But the movie manages to show other fellows at Trinity so wonderfully, that you understand why they would try to find reasons to keep a good man down.


Whilst the gentle humor and clever bantering at Trinity makes you smile, the math makes you gawp, the portions shot in India are a little unbelievable. It shows clearly how foreign crews view India. Poverty is shown to be romantic, and India, the land of temples and elephants. Missed the holy cow among the cliches.


But this movie puts the spotlight on a long forgotten genius. We will perhaps never understand the complicated mathematics, but we can certainly acknowledge good cinema when we see it.

Manisha Lakhe

   

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