Directed by Matt Brown (Ropewalk) and starring Dev Patel (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; Slumdog Millionaire; The Last Airbender; Chappie), Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune; The Merchant of Venice; The Time Machine; The Man in the Iron Mask; The French Lieutenant's Woman) and Malcolm Sinclair (The Young Victoria; Casino Royale; V for Vendetta).

Drama, 108 mins, 6+, in English

Set in the arly 1900s, the film tells the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel), a self-taught Indian mathematician from Madras who had almost no formal training in pure mathematics. A true academic, he corresponded with Cambridge fellow, Professor G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), who eventually succumbed and started to take him seriously, before inviting him over the Britain, leaving his young wife behind. There, Hardy, with the support of Professor Cartwright (Malcolm Sinclair), mentored Ramanujan and tried to encourage him to write out the proofs of all his theorems, etc., in order for them to be published and to be accepted by a mainly sceptical academic community.

In many ways, the film is similar to A Beautiful Mind by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe as mathematical genius John Forbes Nash, Jr., who received the Nobel Prize late in life.

In The Man who Knew Infinity, however, the challenge was not himself and a troubled mind, but others who found it difficult to accept that someone from outside their clique could be so intelligent, and correct.

At times emotional, the film is set primarily in Hardy's rooms and Ramanujan's rooms in Cambridge. The character development of both principals is arguably one of the best assets of the film, in the telling of a historical account with sub-plots involving his family back home in India and some of the other academics in Cambridge, as well as the outbreak of war, against the backdrop of which he has to confront prejudice. while his health deteriorates, he finds comfort in academic and his relationship with Hardy.

Superb performance from both Jeremy Irons as the upper-crust academic and Dev Patel as the genius confronting conformity.