THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY (Matthew Brown ). 108 minutes. Opens Friday (May 20). See listing. Rating: NN
Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel has mastered looking doe-eyed and browbeaten at the same time. That’s pretty much all he brings to the table as Srinivasa Ramanujan, the famed Tamil Indian mathematician who redefined algebra before dying young in 1920.
Writer/director Matthew Brown evidently didn’t have a lot to go on in terms of exploring Ramanujan’s character. He was outspoken while scribbling equations most couldn’t decipher, but otherwise reclusive. Here, he’s distinguished by his religiosity and his Indian-ness.
Brown compensates with familiar tropes. There’s white narrator G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), whose platitudes filter Ramanujan and explain his significance. Ramanujan’s relationship with his wife, Janaki (Devika Bhise), who waits in India longing to be reunited with her husband, is barely developed.
The movie makes her its emotional centre while politely avoiding some real-life math: Ramanujan was 20 when he married nine-year-old Janaki.