Trailer for The Man Who Knew Infinity, starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel.
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."
If The Man Who Knew Infinity trailer is anything it's honest. The feedback for the film claims it is typical and average -- making it more impressive that it landed both Warner Bros and IFC Films for distribution -- and the trailer seems to confirm that. With this first chance to impress, the film doesn't feel at all awe inspiring or A Beautiful Mind-ish.
So maybe it's just bad editing or direction (or score?), as the cast looks fantastic. Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Toby Jones and Stephen Fry? Yes please. Boring inaccurate biopic? Guh, I can wait.