A mathematical genius and his family are all what this dreadful film is all about.Mom acts intellectual by correcting her son's grammar and playing Chopin. Dad talks a good intellectual game but he has so little material to work with here.Our genius has a girlfriend who has been secretly living in the basement of his house for a year. By film's end, the mother of the genius claims she knows all about this.William Hurt, as the father, mumbles his way through the film talking in a continuous monotonous tone.Our genius has quite a surprise for us years later. Am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that his younger brother was interested in the girlfriend. Who would be interested in this all together?Julianne Margulies of "The Good Wife" fame has dinner with her husband in two scenes. She is loud and has really nothing to say or add to this mess of a film. How fortunate for her.

I was captivated by all the fine actors in this film that I never knew existed until a 2011 presentation on Showtime. Finally there arrived an intelligent screenplay with a wide assortment of unusual characters assembled into a unique family arrangement along with two friends of the math genius Clive--Sandra and Elliot The most astounding performance was by Brett Davern who shines as the prototypical normal kid facing challenges from his demanding parents and the aloofness shown to him by his older brother, Clive. As William, Brett enraptures the audience with his innocence and his driving desires to make love to Clive's girlfriend Sandra, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who always plays her roles in a brilliant fashion. William finally achieves a most perfect sexual union with Sandra and we all can appreciate his joy. Brett Davern has a sparkle in his eye throughout the film, and lights up every scene he's in.Clive represents a mysterious youth. speaking to his friend Elliot in a foreign language unknown to any of the characters. Clive, Elliot and Sandra hang out and smoke dope and play guitars.Eventually, William gains acceptance and the four of them produce a very unusual team.William Hurt and Rita Wilson are the boys' parents and add a quirkiness to the film that's much appreciated by this viewer. They perform wonderfully.Now this film takes place in the 1970s, in the era of AIDS, and out of the blue the genius Clive and his friend Elliot are discovered caressing each other naked in the basement. His so-called liberal father slaps him hard, as the audience is really shocked by this last-minute development. Of course, we now understand that the secret language between the boys (a love poem in Hungarian)reflects the secrecy of being gay in that time period. Whether Clive is bi-sexual or merely uses Sandra as a beard is not known.If the film has any fault, it is the fact that the viewers would like to have seen another 20 or 30 minutes of plot development. Instead, we are presented with a penultimate scene many years in the future in which Clive is dying of AIDS with his family at his bedside.It is quite a touching scene, but without any plot to cover the missing years, we are left a bit empty.Finally, Clive is married with two children and discovers quite by chance his brother's secret language.I'm sorry so few people have seen the film. It's about intelligent people filmed for an intelligent audience, which unfortunately is quite rare these days.

Ethan Canin is one of our more important authors ('America, America', 'Emperor of the Air', 'The Palace Thief' which became the film 'The Emperor's Club') and to discover a screenplay/story by him is a treat. BEAUTIFUL OHIO is a fascinating little film directed by Chad Lowe about an apparently close knit family that knows really very little about each other: it is Canin's purpose to unravel the stories of 'ordinary people confronting aspects of themselves they'd rather not see.' Behind each member's delusions and hopes to ultimately reach the mid-ground of recognition of just how special is each member is where this very tender story travels. Simon Messerman (William Hurt) is an insurance salesman who happens to read voraciously and speaks in quotations of famous writers and thinkers. His wife Judith (Rita Wilson) is equally bright, quotes as often as William, but adds a flavor of correcting people's grammar and living in a world of her beloved composers (Chopin, Schumann, Mozart, etc). They have two sons - Clive (David Call) is a long-haired math genius who despite his gifts spends his time playing loud hard rock music and speaking in a language all his own, and William (Brett Davern) who is devoted to his more intelligent brother but longs for a sense of normalcy in a family that tends to fragment at odd times. Clive's best friend and the only person who understands his special language is Elliot (Hale Appleman): the two of them essentially keep to themselves and smoke pot while they are not entertaining the 'homeless' Sandra (Michelle Trachtenberg). Sandra chooses to live in the basement of the Messerman house to avoid coping with her own abusive parents. The four youngsters are a team of sorts, thought the interrelationship roles each plays is not at first apparent. The Messermans brag about Clive's constant triumphs at math contests, entertain their neighbors the Cubanos (Matt Servitto and Julianna Marguiles), and fill their lives with attending math meets, basically ignoring the personalities of their two boys. William longs for acceptance and understanding by his parents: Clive lives in his own world. William is driven to discover the meaning of Clive's strange language and eventually finds clues that lead to the secrets he'd rather not know. A situation occurs that stuns the family, and the story jumps forward to the resolving aftermath of that discovery. For a bare bones budget film the story is well told and is a compelling one. Ethan Canin reads better on the page than his words convey through the mouths of actors, and at times the result is pretentious dialogue. But the cast is superb and the ending is one that makes the audience stop, think, and want to see the movie again for the clues we missed. Well worth seeing. Grady Harp

The bigger thing about seeing this independent film was that I saw it at the 22nd Santa Barbara Film Festival while on a college trip, I had a fantastic time. Oh and after the film finished people in the audience could ask questions to the director, Chad Lowe, and star Brett Davern. Anyway, the film is a family-based film with a lot of talking about life in general, as well as other people's thought's and opinions. The main stars, and who are stealing the show from the teenagers, are the parents, Simon (Lost in Space's William Hurt) and Judith (Jingle All the Way's Rita Wilson) Messerman. The main plot seems to be involving the teenage brothers William (Davern) and Clive (David Call). Clive seems to be speaking what is an unknown language, and William is trying to find the "dictionary" with all words and meanings. The big twists towards the end though are that Clive and his best friend are gay, and that the language is in fact Hungarian, and the "dictionary" is in fact a poem. Also starring Inspector Gadget's Michelle Trachtenberg as Sandra, Ghost Ship's Julianna Margulies as Mrs. Cubano, Matt Servitto as Mr. Cubano, Hale Appleman as Elliot and Justin Matthews as Marty. Good!