Aubrey Malone
The Man Who Knew Infinity (12A)
It’s 1914 and World War I is raging. But inside the walls of Trinity College in Cambridge the old duffers at the helm are more concerned about something mathematical they call “cracking partitions”. Into their hallowed portals comes Srinivasa Ramanujan, an Indian student who can work out the finer points of abstruse equations before you can say “Quad Erat Demonstrandum”.
He claims God is his inspiration when it comes to working out algebraic codes, which flies in the face of the world-view adopted by G.H. Hardy, the professorial mentor who brings him from Madras to Cambridge. “I am what you might call an atheist,” Hardy declares. “No,” Ramanujan replies, “you believe in God. You just don’t think he likes you.”
He tries to move Hardy from his determinedly determinist view of the universe and also to combat the rampant racism practised by those who dub him a “wog” and other pejorative monikers.
Behind him in India is his lonely wife Janaki (Devika Bhise), whose letters to him are hidden by his over-protective mother. When they aren’t acknowledged, she starts to fear he’s stopped loving her.
Conviction
This is a slow-moving film – the only thing of note that happens in the first half hour is that Ramanujan gets his hair cut – but if you bear with its longueurs it will reward you. Director Matt Brown captures the fuddy-duddy milieu of the university with such conviction that when Ramanujan eventually does manage to “crack partitions” (whatever they are) it means as much to us as if the Prime Minister of England appeared at the door and shouted, “Hitler just surrendered!”
Dev Patel, who shot to fame in Slumdog Millionaire in 2008 before his career plateaued, delivers a strong central performance as the prodigy whose genius with figures needs to be tethered into some form of discipline. Jeremy Irons, as Hardy, is the man who takes it upon himself to expedite this. He exudes a kind of avuncular cragginess in the role – in contrast to the other Jeremy, Jeremy Northam, who’s far too smug as Bertrand Russell – pitting himself against the restrictive myopia of his colleagues in his burgeoning (but gradual) friendship with Ramanujan.
One keeps expecting someone like Hugh Bonneville or Jim Broadbent to turn up. Alas, all we get in their place is cuddly Stephen Fry in a thankless cameo.
The film is based on fact. It makes you want to find out more about this enigmatic character called Ramanujan, whose influence on the world of mathematics is still being felt today.
He’s not as tortured as John Nash, the character at the centre of Ron Howard’s somewhat similar A Beautiful Mind, but he still convinces us that his hunger to become a Fellow of the Royal Society – a dubious distinction considering such petty-minded individuals inhabit this terrain – is as important to him as life itself, especially when his health starts to fail.
Very Good ****