A solid, interesting if uncreative telling of the extraordinary story of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
A poor, Tamil Brahim growing up in Madras, Ramanujan was invited to Trinity College, Cambridge, arriving days before the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914. In this hallowed environs, he is confronted with racism, snobbery and academic prejudice – despite his innate mathematical brilliance.
Dev Patel is engaging and Jeremy Irons as Ramanujan’s mentor, G. H. Hardy, brings a sense of gravitas to the film. But The Man Who Knew Infinity is a little too polite, a little too 1 + 1 = 2 to be as memorable as it could have been.
Rating: 54%
Director: Matt Brown (Ropewalk)
Writer: Matt Brown (Ropewalk) – based on the book by Robert Kanigel
Main cast: Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune, Being Julia)
An Opinion or Two 