X+Y

source: X+Y

A content-rich story which is a good watch and an excellent source of further discussion. Brilliantly cast with utterly believable characters, this movie grabbed my attention from start to finish. The issues of brilliance and difference amongst children (and adults) were laid out to be examined and developed. The vehicle of the Mathematics Olympiad honed the obsessive traits in context and brushed past the issue of bullying within the group. The over-the-shoulder-looks at the past cleverly teased out elements of the present. It avoided the obvious focus of winning or losing in favour of the bigger prize - human connection. The perfectly pitched boy-meets-girl thread moved the story to a different plane. The ending was satisfyingly ambiguous in a did they, didn't they, sort of way.

The person that this movie was based on I am sure had a really hard time losing his dad and dealing with his autism, however in the movie the performance given by Asa Butterfield is as one dimensional as you can get. The majority of his scenes were him saying nothing at all, just sitting there with a dumb look on his face. FYI, please don't start criticizing me for this comment, I completely understand that he is portraying someone with autism and that they have a difficult time relating socially with people, what I am saying is that his portrayal just doesn't make for an interesting character in a film. His character was really boring. I am sure it is being true to life, but even at math he wasn't the best, he was just pretty good, at least good enough to get into a math Olympiad but barely! I am not sure what is supposed to be fascinating or interesting about this character? Even with his autism the portrayal of him in the movie was of a shy socially awkward teenager who says mean things to his mom and isn't as "clever" as other boys. This could have been any number of normal awkward teenage boys, even though this one happened to have autism, it didn't add anything unique to his character. They tried to show some scenes of him walking around and seeing all of the lights in the city in double, I am assuming they were trying to show his light sensitivity or his synesthesia but it wasn't portrayed very vividly or in any way where a "normal" person could go, "oh is that what that is like? wow!". It was just him seeing some "blurry" lights. The other character, Jake, was actually way more interesting and deep than Asa's character. He had real issues and was actually interesting. He said things, he struggled, he fought with his peers, he fixated on that Monty Python film clip, he scratched himself. The scene of him in the bathroom was great. Real emotion, depth, and struggle. However in that scene, Asa didn't even say anything!! He just stood there, again, with a dumb look on his face. I won't continue on and on, but I will just say the majority of the rest of the film was also cliché and slow. Girl meets awkward boy and falls for him anyway. Chinese girl who feels pushed to "succeed" for her family. Cliché idealized back flashes to main character and his dad. Etc. Etc. Overall really disappointed in this film.

A very well drawn group of characters beautifully acted by the adults and the kids. Nathan is a child with emotional challenges and the story unfolds as to why this is and how he interacts with everyone around him. In many ways it is difficult to watch as the relationship with his mother is heart-wrenching. Rafe Spall and Eddie Marsan are in unusual roles for them and they carry them well and Sally Hawkins is in a more usual nervy role and her expressions are some of the hardest to bear. The Children are the stars - young Edward Baker-Close (who was present at the showing I went to at a local cinema) say little but emotes by the ton, Asa Butterfield is developing into a fine young actor in this demanding role. The other boys are all well played , especially Jake Davies as Luke but I did feel that the cast had been drawn to make sure there was balanced ethnic representation to balance against the white main players. The girls are slightly caricatured and that is why it got 9 not 10 from me. Anyone with any interest in children on the autism scale or similar personality areas should all watch this one

So I want to review this movie named X+Y. I will tell you what it is about. It is about an guy with autism (or aspergers) finds a place in the International Mathematics Olympiad (I think it is called that) At first he didn't really fit in to me because he was a very quiet teenage boy. Then he started to fit in. He meets Zhang Mei , a lovely , smart Chinese girl and who is the only girl in the Chinese team. They become really good friends and they start to get really close. At the end , Zhang Mei goes back to her birthplace and hometown , China , because she wanted to quit. Then Nathan probably quit as well. This movie is absolutely AMAZING! I went to see it with my friends and we all enjoyed that movie. Asa Butterfield's acting was amazing! I really love him! He is my favourite actor! My favourite character was Nathan ( followed by Zhang Mei). I loved Jo Yang portraying Zhang Mei . This movie is absolutely awesome! It is a must see for you guys if you have not seen this movie! I loved the part where Zhang Mei and Nathan kissed. Oh my God! I fangirled silently! I really give this movie a 10/10.

In my reviews I have observed on more than one occasion that the Brits don't know how to make a bad film. Their challenge is usually in making a great film. This is a case in point. Technically perfect, with a script so polished it gleams, and acting so sharp that even the secondary roles stay in your head long after the credits roll. Butterfield's character is a young boy with Autism who, as a result, may or may not be a world class math prodigy. The point of the story however is not whether his character will win a math Olympics but rather if he will ever become a functioning human being. Butterfield, in a cast of greats, stands out. Has a great career ahead of him, he has mastered the art of delivering dialog with his eyes. The wonderful Sally Hawkins (Poppy in the unforgettable Happy Go Lucky) does a great job in a difficult role as the mother. Since Butterfield's character as written is constantly ignoring his mother, there is a tendency for the audience to do so as well. Hawkins does not allow this. It is an excellent film, more a journey than a destination, and therefore not for everyone. My favourite scene -- the one I will remember for a very long time -- is Butterfield with his (almost) Chinese girlfriend, eating some take-out. The container is opened and the number of comestibles inside is NOT a prime number. The audience (by that point) has been trained to know this will be a cause of great discomfort for the boy, who likes his meals pre-sorted in prime numbers. The girl notices his discomfort and he quickly explains the problem to her. With no hesitation she grabs one of the items and wolfs it down happily. Problem solved! It is a microcosm for the film - start with an impossible boy, add a naturally joyful and spontaneous young woman, and the result is ... serendipity.

It started well, but too formulaic for my liking, with all the clichés possible to elicit sympathy from the audience. There's very little maths or for anyone interested in a peek into that world.This is almost a rom-com of awkward people with all possible derivative ideas.Sad ,really since there are too many,way too many romcoms about people with social skills but this was an opportunity to do something a little more ambitious. Its not even the usual British Oscar bait - British films which are clearly made only to get an Oscar Nomination- and hope for some DVD sales and publicity thereon.It is too lightweight for even that! A waste of time as there are far, far better romcoms about people with limited social skills. Brilliant minds? Forget about it - there's nothing brilliant - just an average lazy,Sunday afternoon TV bait!

Nathan is on the autism scale: though broadly functional, he finds emotional contact difficult, has OCD in certain areas, and so on: however, he is a maths prodigy and is sent to high school early to receive advanced maths tuition from Mr Humphrys, a mildly sardonic teacher in the early stages of multiple sclerosis. Humphrys sets Nathan on course for the British team in the International Maths Olympiad, for which he travels to Taipei and meets Zhang Mei, a non-autistic Chinese girl, also a maths whiz. We see Nathan tentatively exploring difficult areas, and also how other lives in his world change, too. I had vaguely heard of this film, and was not expecting it to be anything special: it is. Sally Hawkins as Nathan's mum, coping on her own, is phenomenal, and Rafe Spall as Humphrys, blighted with his own problems, is nonetheless very human, both funny and touching. Eddie Marsan impresses me more with every film I see him in: Richard, the administrative head of Team GB is not a sympathetic part, but Marsan gives him some real heart. Jo Yang as Zhang Mei is a delight, and the kids generally are very good, but I must single out Jake Davies as the socially inept Luke Shelton, whose performance is heartbreaking. And this is Asa Butterfield's film. To some extent, giving a "disease of the week" performance is easy if all you seek to do is replicate the physical manifestation of the ailment. Butterfield here goes much, much deeper, and fulfils the early promise of Striped Shirt, Hugo et al. If I were to be critical, I would say that the ending (which isn't entirely what I expected) could be accused of a little glibness, but that is being finicky. I cried, several times. This is great.

A Brilliant Young Mind A brilliant young mind. Yup. A brilliant film. Certainly not. More accurate descriptors than "brilliant" would be: slow, boring, clichéd, shallow, ham-fisted and somewhat pretentious - 30 minutes of mediocre content painfully stretched into almost two hours. The stretching tools are the usual ones from the pretentious hack tool-kit, including "empty stares into whatever" and endless retrospectives. You could definitely make a wonderful film with the premise of an autistic child going to the IMO. One could imagine such a film, full of insight and warmth. One could, but this film was not that film. Guess my obvious disappointment comes from being misled by the IMDb ratings in conjunction with the promising premise. That just about sums it up. We could mention the acting, which is OK. Not bad, not stellar - just actors doing their job quite well. For some reason, critics, wannabe intellectuals and other semi-imbeciles believe that portraying "tormented souls" represents the pinnacle of "acting", that it is somehow more difficult or worthier. Nonsense! Much more fascinating than the actual film is why so many reviewers give this rather mediocre low budget effort 10 or 9 stars, i.e. rating this as one of the best films ever made. For crying out loud! Presumably, the reviewers fall into three broad categories: 1. Members of the production team and/or their friends and family. 2. Aspiring intellectuals, who need to display (to themselves or others) how they are able to "get it". Yup, this amazing ability of seeing something in nothing is indeed impressive... Newsflash: them nifty clothes the emperor is wearing - take another look. To spell it out: it may be a promising premise, it may be an important, or interesting, topic, it may look all "deep and stuff", but it ain't a good movie. 3. People who like the film since they feel it accurately portrays autism. Frankly, this appears to apply to many of the reviews in this case. Having an autistic brother and a close friend with Asperger's, I sort-of get this reason for liking the film, but seriously, is accurately portraying something enough to qualify as a masterpiece of film making? I could elaborate, but I'm off to make a very accurate portrayal of paint drying. To make this epic even masterpiecier, it will include several retrospectives of sanding and priming, some unbelievably slow panning and some of the emptiest staring into the abyss ever captured on film. Rating: this could be classified as a solid 4 to 5 star film, i.e. a bit below average (god knows there is some truly awful crap out there). I give it two stars to balance the ludicrous notion that this might be one of the all-time masterpieces of film making.

This movie came onto my radar because of the talent involved, I didn't really know what to expect, so I blindly went to see it. From the start this film pulls you in and pull on your heart- strings. Granted, I was jet-lagged when I saw it, which probably explained why I was teary-eyed for much of the film. The movie, is very much a character film. It tackles every aspect of Nathan's life and that of the people around him. The film manages to be a family drama, a coming of age movie with a dash of romance, and a comedy at the same time. It all seamlessly fit together and keep you captivated. The cast is out of this world. The group of young actors they chose is simply impressive because they are all so natural that it's easy to believe that they are the characters they're portraying. Asa Butterfield is wickedly talented and morphed into Nathan for the duration of the film. Morgan Matthews' background in documentary film-making has a huge impact on how realistic and natural the film feels. The film really shows a wide spectrum of teenagers, among the socially awkward, quirky, math prodigy children. He conveys a strong message by showcasing these kids as they are and not falling into common stereotypes. A Brilliant Young Mind is a gem that I would recommend to every one. I LOVED this film, it's touching and amazingly well made. @Wornoutspines