Madness and Genius

Darren Aronofsky's “Pi” multipled by the negative of “Good Will Hunting” yields the root for this menacing drama of beautiful and un-beautiful minds in the cloisters of an unnamed, prestigious college. Here noble principles of science are not greater than/equal to variables of the human factor. Like Stephen Hawking, brilliant undergrad Nigel suffers from degenerative ALS, making him progressively helpless. While he reaches out to Rachel, a pretty teaching assistant in concubinage to a professor-lover, Nigel's main solace is pure mental pleasure in doing homework for roommate Jordan, who had coasted through classes on a photographic memory. Now Jordan's failing grades reflect his lack of comprehension. An unpopular physics instructor, Frank Donovan, once a luminary of the Manhattan Project, is a muttering, withdrawn paranoiac, inventing incredible technologies and devices only on pages scattered in his cluttered office – and vulnerable to a desperate Jordan's blackmail. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to quantify the dark matter in Ryan Eslinger's monochrome debut.