Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: ADVENTURES OF A MATHEMATICIAN [Sonoma International Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

The idea of idealism in the face of suffering is an interesting construct since it is integrated in the idea that circumstances don't inherently change the path on which we find ourselves on. In "Adventures Of A Mathematician" based on a novel of the same name, playing the virtual edition of the Sonoma Film Festival, the story follows a would-be Polish national (at that point it seems on the cusp of the Soviet bloc) who finds himself in America as a professor at Harvard yet his family is still stuck overseas (gripped by the darkness of World War II). The movie delves in the idea of numbers (in a different way say than "The Imitation Game") versus the eventual result in something like the atomic bomb. As this is slightly after the first atomic bomb is developed it is balanced in the element of the hydrogen bomb and the race to make sure Hitler doesn't come up with it first. The push and pull of this man and his psyche who is just trying to explore the American Dream including loving someone who he wants and professing his opinion undeterred is easily at odds with America at War. An interesting divide happens about halfway through which is divisive in a way of what it discusses in terms what he should do and why he does it. The balance of family is brought into play but it is an irony between some of the team members who understand elements of consequence and guilt (many of them because, despite their intelligence, they were mostly uninformed). The story speaks to the idea of blind ambition without knowing the final end. The boon comes in the possibility of opportunity. The part of the film that inherently works the best though, although it sometimes falls apart, is the romance between the lead character and his immigrant Jewish girlfriend-turned-wife who has a much better sense of simple logic than he does...and he is a mathematician. The resolution keeps too the point of the idea but also that the ends don't always justify the means. B

By Tim Wassberg