Of the many things that make “A Brilliant Young Mind” unsatisfying, arguably the most salient is that the assertion of its title defies dramatization. Nathan is brilliant? Well, if he were a footballer or a spelling-bee champ, we could see his skill as it evolved and played out. But since most filmgoers are not mathematics geniuses, the competition here must be reduced to furrowed brows, flurries of numbers flashed across the screen, and occasional swatches of unintelligible math-speech.
More dramatically problematic, though, is that, with one exception, Nathan’s relationships with people go nowhere. Whether it’s his mother, his father, his mentor, or his fellow students, there’s virtually no difference in how they relate to him between the first time we see them and the last. (The one exception, slight but pleasing nonetheless, is Nathan and Jo’s teen-crush.) As in other scripts with this weakness, a lack of dramatic development results in a great deal of narrative padding: throughout, the film flashes back to child-Nathan’s interaction with his dad, or to Martin wrestling with his alcoholism, scenes which do absolutely nothing to advance the story but end up making the film, at 111 minutes, feel lumpy and overlong.
These flaws also have a negative impact on the film’s acting. Hawkins, a truly delightful performer in most circumstances, and Butterfield are both reduced to one-note performances due to the limitations of their characters as written: she’s got a single expression of chirpy eagerness, whereas his adolescent angst produces a single downcast look. Much better are Marsden and Zhang, who enliven their characters with a freshness and energy the protagonist lacks. For his part, Spall falls somewhere between: he’s got screen presence galore, though his character never gets beyond the two-dimensional.
Director Matthews has previously directed documentaries and “A Brilliant Young Mind” is his first foray into dramatic territory. Not surprisingly, his visuals have little compositional rigor or distinction, but often seem to stand at a middle distance in order to allow the actors room to move. No doubt he’ll expand and refine his stylistic vocabulary if he continues to work in drama, and, with luck, discovers better scripts.
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