A Brilliant Young Mind
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Nathan Ellis, a 9 year old maths prodigy, has just lost his father in a car accident. Nathan is diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum early in the film, and his father was the only one who was able to connect normally with him. Although Nathan values his mother, Julie, he shuns any physical contact with her and treats her as more of a caretaker than a parent. Wanting to make sure Nathan is not distracted from his studies, Julie enrolls him in advanced classes at a new school (filmed at High Storrs School in Sheffield, United Kingdom). There, he comes under the tutelage of teacher Martin, also a math genius, who has multiple sclerosis. Martin sees himself in Nathan, once a promising young mind in the field of mathematics, who gave it all up once he was diagnosed with his illness.
Seven years later, Martin is preparing Nathan to compete for a place in the International Mathematical Olympiad, a prestigious high school competition consisting of the world's best young mathematicians. This year, it is to be held at Cambridge, after a two-week math camp in Taiwan where the students will study for the test that determines the winners. Nathan fears he is not good enough to qualify but ends up doing well enough to accompany 15 other British teenagers to Taiwan.
Parents need to know that A Brilliant Young Mind is heartwarming but also quite frank about the emotional cost of losing a parent as a young child -- and how that can shape your outlook into adulthood. The movie explores grief and all sorts of emotions that go with it, including anger, making it best for teens and up; younger kids might find it too sad and intense. Expect some adolescent flirting and kissing, cursing (including "f--k," "s--t," and more), a harrowing car accident (and the very sad aftermath), and a disturbing scene in which a character is shown violently scratching himself with a very sharp instrument. The main character, a teen who's on the autism spectrum, has communication challenges, but all of the adults in his life try very hard to connect with him and have his best interests in mind.
A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND isn't exactly brilliant, but it is a heartfelt, thought-provoking, well-acted drama. Central to the story is young Nathan's isolation, and Butterfield brings his character's complicated struggles to life in an authentic, heartbreaking way.
A Brilliant Young Mind has all the makings of a great fictional narrative: a young protagonist played by an award-winning actor (Asa Butterfield) has a developmental disorder but is also incredibly gifted, and with the encouragement of a wise mentor, he battles his given circumstances to rise to the top and find his place in the world. The story is inherently cinematic, so it might surprise you to learn that A Brilliant Young Mind is based on a true story. Butterfield's character Nathan is based on real-life mathematical genius Daniel Lightwing, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Lightwing was featured in the BBC documentary Beautiful Young Minds , which followed the selection, training, and competition of the British team for the 2006 International Mathematics Olympiad.
Watching the film, Director Morgan Matthews was in awe of the brilliant young competitors featured, and Lightwing in particular fascinated the filmmaker with his complex uniqueness. Matthews felt that Lightwing's story was sufficient for a feature film, and so he decided to make one. The result is A Brilliant Young Mind, which was originally released in the U.K. last year under the title X+Y. The film is based on Lightwing's real life and was made with his blessing, but nevertheless, it took some artistic liberties. Here are a few notable ways in which A Brilliant Young Mind differs from Lightwing's actual experiences.
One typical Hollywood device to which the film succumbs is the tragic death of a parental figure. Nathan's father dies when the boy is young, which seems to contribute to his stunted emotional growth. In fact, Daniel Lightwing's father is very much alive, and he attended the film premiere alongside his son.
At school, Mr. Humphrey (Rafe Spall), an unconventional math teacher, works with this brilliant teenager. After completing a qualifying test, Nathan is one of 16 students from UK chosen to attend the prestigious Mathematical Olympiad. He travels to Taiwan to train with other winners from around the world. Throughout the film, it is clear that this focused young man loves the beauty of mathematics and has a passion for its patterns.
It is fascinating to watch Asa Butterfield's nuanced depiction of Nathan who flinches when touched; speaks softly and tentatively when he breaks out of silence; and surprises everyone with his change of heart brought on by the affection and hopefulness of Zheng Mei (Jo Yang), a young mathematician from China who develops a crush on him.
Although it suffers from a particularly boring U.S. release title, the English film A Brilliant Young Mind (originally X + Y) tells a nuanced and tender story of a mathematically gifted teenager who struggles to relate to those who love him. Asa Butterfield (Ender's Game, Hugo) plays the young Nathan, who appears to have something akin to Asperger's syndrome. Since the death of his father in a terrible car crash, the boy has retreated into his love of numbers, dreaming one day of winning a medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad, which is like the Super Bowl for high school mathletes.
Structurally, the film feels sort of like a sports movie or Jean-Claude Van Damme karate flick. The young student shows promise, gets one-on-one training from a washed-up master, and goes into intense training only to realize he has to overcome some personal demon in order to achieve victory. Oh, and don't forget the love interest. All of these things are in A Brilliant Young Mind, but the parts make up a different equation. At a high-level math camp for to-be Olympiad students, Nathan is confronted with the challenge of leaving England for Taiwan and competing with the world's top students, the Chinese. Yet, in this stressful environment, the young introvert finds himself drawn to one of his rivals, a girl who's anything but introverted and yet she's just as clever as Nathan. Just as the young mathematician works on solving incredibly complex math problems, which the film makes surprisingly thrilling, he's also trying to figure out what an old and perhaps cliche problem: what it means to love someone.
The film shows this endeavor with crisp camerawork from Danny Cohen (The King's Speech), and Butterfield is able to convey an impressive range of emotions with just his eyes. Yet, A Brilliant Young Mind walks a strange line. It feels as though we get conflicting views of Nathan. Are we supposed to think of this boy as a John Nash-type genius figure, from the similarly titled film A Beautiful Mind? Or is he a gifted but rather normal kid? Indeed, Nathan only seems struggle, in regards to empathy, in his relationship with his mother. Other than that, even the handholding he has with his Chinese crush seems pretty normal in terms of onscreen teenage drama. While the film might be trying to humanize Nathan, A Brilliant Young Mind perhaps doesn't quite give enough gravity to the difficulties posed by autism. Even so, the movie does keep in mind that many children are different but not gifted. We, and Nathan, are very aware he's not one of them.
After Hugo, you were on a lot of lists of promising young actors and actors to watch. Did it feel like a lot of pressure to live up to these expectations the world thrust upon you?
Raised by a mother, Julie (Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky), whose very touch causes him to flinch, Nathan is a brilliant math prodigy whose mind is dominated by a seemingly pronounced autism that renders him socially awkward, maddeningly methodical, and unable to connect with anyone or anything beyond the numbers that seem to envelope his every thought.
Inspired by true events, A Brilliant Young Mind tells the story of Nathan, whose brilliant young mind can't possibly mask the often heartwrenching challenges faced by a youth struggling to find a place to belong and struggling to decide if it really even matters. Asa Butterfield, so absolutely brilliant in the even more devastating The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, offers an aching vulnerability without compromising that overwhelming sense of detachment so often associated with individuals who have autism. While Butterfield has always had a bit of a detached quality about his performances, there's a magnificent depth here that far transcends anything he's ever shown on screen. Butterfield's Nathan is unflinching in his sense of bewilderment with the world, a world that gets even more rocked when his gift for Math leads to his placement on U.K. team for the International Mathematical Olympiad in Taiwan. It is in Taiwan where he encounters a spirit so gentle, Zhang Mei (Jo Yang), that it's as if his soul becomes cracked open just enough to let her inside his world. While some may consider this relationship to be a tad precious given the rest of the film, it's a layer of warmth and innocence that works well within the body of the film and remains consistent within the often inexplicable world of autism where someone gets in where so many others have been left on the outside.
Sally Hawkins, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the British Independent Film Awards for her performance here, has always had a gift for playing emotionally honest yet quirky characters yet her performance here, much like Butterfield's, is remarkable in its depth and honesty. It reminded me of her performance in last year's Oscar-winning live-action short film The Phone Call. Hawkins beautifully and painfully and exhilaratingly portrays an experience both deeply intimate and universal as Julie, a mother whose love for her son is deep and yet it seems he has utterly no clue whatsoever. Hawkins captures that love's relentlessness and its overwhelming frustration, while giving us ever so fleeting moments of light that remind us why, far beyond being his mother, she refuses to ever give up. As seems to always be true of Hawkins, it's a masterful performance that deserves more awards attention than it's likely to receive here in the states. 781b155fdc