Colonial India, 1913. Srinavasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel) is a 25-year-old shipping clerk and self-taught genius, who failed out of college due to his near-obsessive, solitary study of mathematics. Determined to pursue his passion despite rejection and derision from his peers, Ramanujan writes a letter to G. H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), an eminent British mathematics professor at Trinity College, Cambridge. Hardy recognises the originality and brilliance of Ramanujan’s raw talent and despite the scepticism of his colleagues, undertakes bringing him to Cambridge so that his theories can be explored.
The film, which does attempt to provide a biopic on the real-life Srinivasa Ramanujan, has been declared as heavily inaccurate by some of those who caught a screening of The Man Who Knew Infinity during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. It doesn’t help that critics describe the film as perfectly average or, according to the Hollywood Reporter, an “all too conventional biopic.”
GENIUS/INSANITY
GOOD WILL HUNTING – R
A South Boston whiz kid elects to clean the halls of learning rather than enter them, slumming his way through life as a janitor at MIT. But his natural ability to unravel complex equations attracts the attention of a professor who won’t let him quit, a beautiful Harvard student who wants to save him, a sympathetic buddy who wants him to escape South Boston, and a counselor who encourages him.
Trailer for Good Will Hunting on TrailerAddict.
FISHERKING – R
A former radio DJ, suicidally despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a deranged homeless man who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.
IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY – PG13
In this New York City-set comedy-drama, 16-year-old Craig (Keir Gilchrist), stressed out from the demands of being a teenager, checks himself into a mental health clinic. There he learns that the youth ward is closed – and finds himself stuck in the adult ward. One of the patients, Bobby (Zach Galifianakis), soon becomes both Craig’s mentor and protégé. Craig is also drawn to another 16-year-old, Noelle (Emma Roberts). With a minimum five days’ stay imposed on him, Craig is sustained by friendships on both the inside and the outside as he learns more about life, love, and the pressures of growing up.
LITTLE MAN TATE
Dede is a sole parent trying to bring up her son Fred. When it is discovered that Fred is a genius, she is determined to ensure that Fred has all the opportunities that he needs, and that he is not taken advantage of by people who forget that his extremely powerful intellect is harboured in the body and emotions of a child.
– Written by Murray Chapman