Unusual historical biographies constitute a wonderful tidal pool of sorts off of mainstream filmmaking because they introduce people who might otherwise remain unknown to multitudes, and they illustrate how different — and similar — people are in different places and times than our own.  This unusual historical biography introduces us to Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel), an Indian clerk of the early 1900s with a remarkable gift for advanced mathematics.

Matthew Brown’s film (for which he also wrote the script) doesn’t try to illustrate Ramanujan’s gift with numbers, nor his childhood in turn of the century India.  Ramanujan has married and needs a job when we meet him; his abilities with math are remarkably irrelevant to his current life.  Through persistence and help from a sponsor he attracts the attention of a professor at Cambridge University, G. H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), and is summoned to England to prove his mathematical mettle.  This turns out to be the greatest challenge, achievement and tragedy of his life.

Ramanujan’s travails at Cambridge are well documented and highly effective, especially once World War I begins and patriotic fervor changes the campus.  The relationships between Ramanujan and the Cambridge elite, especially Hardy, is compelling, if not satisfying, while Ramanujan’s personal situation grows more and more dire.  While I understand that this story follows true events, it is not a particularly happy story, and an inevitable pall hangs over the proceedings which will always prevent this film from reaching a wide audience.

Brown’s film is excellent in many ways, from its acting (Irons hasn’t had a role so plum in years) to its depiction of a period in time when things were so different than they are today.  Solid contributions are made by Toby Jones, Jeremy Northam and Kevin R. McNally in the English scenes, and Devika Bhise in the Indian.  It doesn’t attempt to depict the thought patterns of a genius (the way Ron Howard did so effectively in A Beautiful Mind), but it does allow Ramanujan to gradually describe his gift to Hardy in a way that benefits the story and intrigues the imagination.  I feel that too much emphasis is placed upon Ramanujan’s ultimate acceptance at Cambridge, but that at least is a concrete example of his worth.  It’s just too bad that his story is, ultimately, so lamentable instead of triumphant.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  25 May 2016.