A Brilliant Young Mind (2014)

The entire time that I sat watching A Brilliant Young Mind I could not stop thinking of the 2011 film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  The theme similarities were so striking.

In his 2012 review of Extremely Loud, Roger Ebert said, “No movie has ever been able to provide a catharsis for the Holocaust, and I suspect none will ever be able to provide one for 9/11. Such subjects overwhelm art.” I would add to that list-watching a parent or child killed right in front of you. Brilliant Young Mind‘s director does not attempt to take us there.  Instead he focuses on the son’s intellectual development and his road to participation in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

A Brilliant Young Mind is about a young boy, Nathan,  who suffers from Autism but has learned to function in limited fashion outside of the home.  He is extremely brilliant but his social skills are lacking at best and often quite rude and selfish.  The one person that he related to during his developmental years was his father, who is killed in a car crash with Nathan sitting next to him.  Nathan is never sure whether or not he was partially responsible for the accident and carries the guilt into his teens.  He carries his mourning for a long time and will not let his mother truly into his life.  His mother, Julie, tries hard to break through his defenses and we see her constant pain and humiliation at not being able to establish a warm loving relationship with her son.  Nathan seems oblivious to how much he hurts his mother.  But she does not quit trying and does whatever she can to support him at all times.

In Extremely Loud the story was about an extremely intelligent  11 year old boy who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome resulting in the lack of acceptable social skills.  Like Nathan, Oskar was much closer to his father and feels very distant from his mother.  He too does not seem to realize how much he hurts his mother.  A theme much stronger in Extremely Loud but certainly evident in Brilliant Mind is the child’s resentment that it is the mother that is still alive.

The cinematography is well done using long shots to help convey the isolation and loneliness both in Nathan and Julie and then closeups to try and give us an emotional tie.  When Nathan was 1 on 1 with others the shots frequently were medium shots so that we could see his inability to get close.  The lighting and coloring are never stark or cold.  There is always some warmth.  Often colored lights such as stoplights are used in montage format to convey the confusion occurring in Nathan’s mind.  The fatal accident occurred at a stoplight so this is also used to show his association recurring.

Nathan’s roommate for the training camp is a teenager with Asperger’s syndrome.  Luke bullies people constantly but we see the fear in his face even as he pushes others away.  There is one very tender scene where he has been mutilating himself and as he assures Nathan he is OK he asks “How did your parents tell you?”  While we had previously seen Nathan’s parents trying to explain things to him, this scene really emphasized the trauma these young children feel when told they are different.  A short scene with tremendous impact.

An interesting sub-theme is a look at how different people deal with their infirmities.  Nathan strives to succeed and make the Olympiad team.  Once he know he is going to the training camp in China he takes it upon himself to learn Mandarin.  He wants to fit in.  His tutor,Martin, who suffers from Muscular Dystrophy, has all but given up.  He quit trying, became an alcoholic, and dropped out of the mathematics community.  It is only after starting to form a relationship with Nathan’s mother that he decides to enter group therapy and clean up his act.  Perhaps implicit in that is the idea that after dealing with her son’s problems for so many years, Julie is able to have an effect and support for Martin.

Some critics have criticized the lack of character development of those dealing with Nathan complaining that “Nathan’s relationships with people go nowhere. Whether it’s his mother, his father, his mentor, or his fellow students, there’s virtually no difference in how they relate to him between the first time we see them and the last.”   Having worked with these types of children earlier in my life I know that such is reality and I applaud the filmmakers for not contriving something just to make viewers feel better.  The fact that those people who commented were uncomfortable with what they saw, in my mind. says that the filmmakers nailed it.