A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND – The Review

A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND tells the story of a mathematically gifted British teen on the autism spectrum as he prepares to compete in an international math Olympics.

Nathan (Asa Butterfield) is gifted at math but struggles with relationships, including with his caring but overwhelmed mother Julie (Sally Hawkins). Nathan has the more functional form of autism once known as Aspergers but he is also still struggling with the trauma of the accidental death of his father Michael (Martin McCann), who was killed in a car wreck while Nathan was in the car. His mother has done her best to raise him as a single parent but Nathan was never as close to her as his dad and it has been difficult for them both. A chance to enter the International Math Olympiad brings an unconventional math coach into Nathan’s life and introduces him to other mathematically gifted kids.

There is quite a bit of comedy and even some romance in this pleasant, crowd-pleasing British film. While it follows a conventional story arc, A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND also accurately depicts some of the difficulties of raising a child on the autism spectrum. Director Morgan Mathews loosely based the story  on a boy he met while filming his documentary “Beautiful Young Minds.” This British film was originally named “X + Y” when it played at the Toronto film festival, which is a clever mathematical title but a little obscure in telling an audience what the film is about. Nathan is indeed a brilliant young mathematical mind, and in fact sees everything in his world through a mathematical filter. Although he is a nice looking boy, Nathan is shy and the only thing he seems to care about is math. Despite his shyness with others, he is a bit of tyrant towards his eager-to-please mother, treating her with coldness although he clearly knows he needs her too. He is picky about his food, and his obsession with prime numbers leads him to demand that he have an exact number of shrimp in his Chinese take-out, berating his long-suffering mother if she gets it wrong. His mother is so devoted to her still-grieving son that she takes his abuse without complaint, and even seeming to feel inadequate to the task of raising him.

When Nathan’s school recommends a math coach to prepare him for the math competition, a new factor changes the toxic social dynamics. Martin Humphreys (Rafe Spall) is a once-promising math prodigy who didn’t quite live up to potential. Now teaching in the middle school, he is an unconventional wise-cracker and a bit of a slob, who also suffers from muscular dystrophy. Still he makes a connection with Nathan and the two become close. The pair travel to a math camp in Taiwan, where Nathan meets other mathematical-gifted kids, including another boy with autism, a girl who plays piano and introduces him to the links between music and math, and a Chinese girl, Zhang Mei (Jo Yang), under pressure to succeed by her family.

The film moves smoothly back and forth between comic and drama scenes, never becoming overly sentimental. The British cast is splendid, but Eddie Marsan nearly steals the show as Richard, the head of the British math team and a competition official, a sharp, funny fellow who cuts through a lot of distractions to get straight to the heart of the matter. Fine photography and the film’s nice pacing enhance the experience.

One does not have to have an interest in math to enjoy A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND’s appealing, intelligent, informative story with a surprisingly realistic peek inside life raising an autistic child.

The film opens Friday, Sept. 25, at Plaza Frontenac Cinema

OVERALL RATING: 3 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS