If you have seen Florence Foster Jenkins then you must see this movie.

It is quite the opposite. Here the human spirit prevails and one gets a sense of its divine spark, both in a humane and creative sense in this, a true story of one of the legendary mathematicians of the 20th century.

Srinivasa Ramanujan, superbly played by Dev Patel of Marigold Hotel  fame, is a lowly Indian civil servant at the turn of the 19th century in British Colonial India.In an almost supernatural way, vast tracts of mathematics appear to be almost downloaded into his consciousness.  From where do they come?! Ramanujan attributes all to his family goddess.

And it is not dross. It is at the highest level, the very frontiers of mathematical theory. Ramanujan writes it all down, pages and pages of it, in clear handwriting with little crossing out. He wants to share it with the world. And he seeks recognition of his genius.

It is not an easy path. No one is willing to give this simple devout Indian from Madras any credence. Eventually, and with the help of others, he is invited into the hallowed portals of Trinity College Cambridge, the very heart of the British Mathematical Establishment.

Here although closer to his goals and having defied his Brahmin ban on overseas travel, he is now a stranger in a strange land, isolated from his family and his culture.

His mentor at Cambridge is G.H.Hardy (a wonderful performance here by Jeremy Irons) whose giant intellect is both revered and feared. And Hardy is an atheist. He does not believe in God because he does not believe in things he cannot prove.

Ramanujan is the total opposite. He does not plod away at theorems and formulae. They appear to him almost spontaneously. Hardy is totally rational. Ramanujan is wholly intuitive.

This is a magnificent movie, its characters flawlessly cast, the cinematography and recreation of the era superb. It will confront your conventional wisdom about human intelligence. It is a glimpse of a world that is beyond our understanding.

How did this simple Indian man with little formal academic training attain such profound knowledge?! We may dismiss Ramanujan’s explanation that his knowledge was divinely inspired, the mind of god. But how else can one explain it?!

Editor’s Note – Such is the quality of this film I was more than happy to publish this second review.