X+Y (2015) (English Language)

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Review

111min

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Sally Hawkins, Rafe Spall…and more

A mildly autistic and socially inept young math genius travels to Taiwan to try and secure a place in the British “Mathematics Olympics” team and in the process expand the narrow world he has become obsessively accustomed to, as he struggles towards excellence he will be confronted by the childhood trauma that has alienated him from his mother and those around him and perhaps achieve a greater human connection that his talent can offer.

The young star of 2011’s ‘Hugo‘ Asa Butterfield delivers a subtle but impressive performance as Nathan, a British teenager whose condition and childhood have alienated him from the typical growth experiences of his peers and made him emotionally unavailable to his mother played by Sally Hawkins, conversely he manages to focus all his talent and attention on his passion for mathematics guided by a former maths prodigy and cynical multiple-sclerosis suffering teacher played by Rafe Spall.

The tagline for ‘X+Y’ is “Is there a formula for love?” as movie debutant director Morgan Matthews attempts to weave a cinematic Mathematical tapestry into a humble character drama, but this film is not so much an ode to the beauty of mathematics the way ‘A Beautiful Mind‘ was but much more a straight emotional human comedy/drama.

Matthews uses the “maths mechanism” to shine a light on the way flawed and complex human beings connect with each other through the inevitable dramas of life and with the hands we are sometimes dealt with from birth.

The performances are all accomplished, in particular from the 3 main leads, ‘X+Y’ is charming and quaint but surprisingly and welcomingly lacking in mushy sentimentality, despite the fact that it is somewhat predictable and ironically formulaic at times.

A simultaneously typical and yet original coming-of-age story, ‘X+Y’‘ is a small charming British drama with convincing performances within a promising feature-film directorial debut from Morgan Matthews.

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