X+Y

X+Y
British film poster
Directed by	Morgan Matthews
Produced by	David M. Thompson Laura Hastings-Smith
Written by	James Graham
Starring	Asa Butterfield Rafe Spall Sally Hawkins Eddie Marsan Jo Yang
Cinematography	Danny Cohen
Production company	Origin Pictures Minnow Films
Distributed by	Koch Media (UK) Samuel Goldwyn Films (USA)
Release dates	5 September 2014 (2014-09-05) (TIFF) 13 March 2015 (2015-03-13) (United Kingdom)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	$1.2 million[1]

X+Y, released in the US as A Brilliant Young Mind, is a 2014 British drama film directed by Morgan Matthews starring Asa Butterfield, Rafe Spall and Sally Hawkins.^[2][3]

The film, inspired by the documentary, Beautiful Young Minds,^[4] focuses on a teenage English mathematics prodigy named Nathan (Asa Butterfield) who has difficulty understanding people, but finds comfort in numbers. When he is chosen to represent the United Kingdom at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), Nathan embarks on a journey in which he faces unexpected challenges, such as understanding the nature of love. The character of Nathan was based on Daniel Lightwing who won a silver medal at the 2006 IMO.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]}

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 5 September 2014.^[6][12][13] The European premiere^[6] was at the BFI London Film Festival on 13 October 2014,^[14] and the UK cinema release was on 13 March 2015.^[11]

The film heavily features previously recorded songs by Keaton Henson.

Cast

• Asa Butterfield as Nathan Ellis
• Rafe Spall as Martin Humphreys
• Sally Hawkins as Julie Ellis
• Eddie Marsan as Richard
• Jo Yang as Zhang Mei
• Jake Davies as Luke Shelton
• Alexa Davies as Rebecca
• Martin McCann as Michael Ellis
• Alex Lawther as Isaac Cooper
• Edward Baker-Close as Nathan Ellis (age 9)

Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 86% approval rating with a weighted average score of 6.6/10 based on 74 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "A Brilliant Young Mind is tender and perceptive – and intelligent enough to find a wealth of dramatic riches buried under well-trod narrative ground."^[15] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 65 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."^[16]

Departures from the true story

The main character Nathan Ellis is based on mathematical genius Daniel Lightwing who has Asperger syndrome. Lightwing had a teacher who saw his potential and became his mentor, however his mentor was not a man but a woman named Miggy Biller who is the Head of Maths at York College. In the film the IMO takes place in Cambridge, England but the actual event that Lightwing participated in was in Slovenia. The training camp took place in China where Daniel fell in love with a Chinese woman whom he married (they are no longer together).

Lightwing's mentor Miggy Biller attended the film's premiere and told the York College newsletter: "We sat beside each other at the showing, chuckling together about some of the film’s maths problems. It was funny to look at the line between fact and fiction being trod all the time by the film! Dan’s Dad, sitting just behind us, saw himself killed in a car accident … and I don’t think I need to say that I didn’t recognise myself in Rafe Spall!" She went on to say, "It’s a brilliant and very moving film, and Asa Butterfield is amazing.” Lightwing told the Evening Standard, "I cried the first three times I watched it. It says things I was feeling but could not express."^[17]

References

External links

• X+Y at the Internet Movie Database
• X+Y at Rotten Tomatoes
• X+Y at Metacritic
• X+Y at AllMovie (rating 3.5/5)