By William Wolf

A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND  Send This Review to a Friend

Nathan Ellis (appealing Edward Baker Clase) is a gifted nine-year-old boy, a math wizard, in “A Brilliant Young Mind,” directed by Morgan Matthews. But his life takes a drastic turn when his beloved father, Michael (Martin McCann), with whom he has a lovely, warm relationship, is suddenly killed in a car crash, with Nathan as a passenger. He becomes sad and sullen as he misses his father desperately.

As a grown student, Nathan, with rarely dropped reserve, is played effectively by Asa Butterfield. He has his mother, Julie, portrayed by Sally Hawkins with her customary expertise, for emotional support, but she is hard-pressed to deal with Nathan’s perpetually depressed state. Nobody can replace his father. He loses himself in his brilliant capability with math, and is mentored by Rafe Spall as his teacher, Mr. Humphreys.

Fresh movement in Nathan’s life begins when he earns participation on Britain’s team competing in the International Mathematics Olympiad and goes to a training camp in Taipei, with Eddie Marsden playing Richard, the team supervisor. A friendship develops between Nathan and Jo Yang as sympathetic student Zhang Mei, offering a hope that Nathan can make some personal progress toward the ability to form a relationship.

Life for gifted young people at such a special level, in this case the dazzling ability to excel in the field of mathematics, can be difficult enough. But having been hit with the death of his father, Nathan is doubly plagued by emotional challenges. He has buried himself in math almost throughout his waking hours.

The film has too many flashbacks of Nathan as a child with his father in incidents of haunting memories. One should be able to understand Nathan’s pain without the drumbeat of so many scenes from the past.

A budding new romantic relationship on the part of his mother with his teacher upsets Nathan, and Hawkins is excellent as she attempts to break through with closeness that will help Nathan come to terms with his demons. The story (screenplay by James Graham) is consistently engrossing and one may be inclined to root for Nathan when he is accepted into the competitive finals at Oxford. Fortunately, the ending is not clichéd. A Samuel Goldwyn Films release. Reviewed September 9, 2015.

  

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