Infinity is not a masterpiece nor even great cinema (but do we hold it on account of that?), but it does have something that I really loved about it. I adore Richard Feynman, he being my favourite scientist and one of my two heroes (the other being Itzhak Perlman) to really try to aspire to be everything I can be. I think everyone should read his books (even his Physics lectures, even if you hate Physics. He makes everything worthwhile). Onto the film... The film starts out with the sweet, gentle relationship between father and son, taking direct quotes from Feynman's own novels (he actually didn't write them; they are accounted stories) Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! and What Do YOU Care What Other People Think? and letters and such. It progresses through Richard's days in high school, to meeting Arline (that is the correct spelling) onto MIT and Princeton (pre Los Alamos). During this, my biggest complaint would be that the film moved way too fast. There were some lines ("Look I'm gorgeous") that were just beginning to show Feynman's character and his way with humour, but it plowed right through them onto the next scene. I think Broderick was so intent on keeping everything to the book, he forgot some very vital elements of what made "Richard Feynman" Richard Feynman. What really grasped Feynman's character was when the film steered into the direction of Feynman's days at Los Alamos (working on "the bomb") and Arline was at the sanatorium. The film showed just how much fun Arline had with Feynman and vice versa (I loved that the film included Feynman's birthday present from Arline!). It also showed the tenderness, yet sometimes almost "absent" love of Feynman. In Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Tack: the letters of Richard Feynman, he writes a letter to Arline before she dies telling her how he wished he would have been there for her more, loved her more, etc. I think the film really captures that, even before the book was published, Broderick had a sense of what Feynman was going through. He didn't really know how to handle his wife dying. Lastly, I loved how they implement Feynman's love of "drumming". It really didn't become an obsession until much later (when he went to Brazil after Arline's death), but the film shows the beginnings of a love that Feynman would love until his death (a number of his friends joked that he was going to spend his Nobel earnings on a new bongo drum). There were flashes of the Feynman people know and love, but it didn't really hold true at the beginning. One thing that seemed confusing was a brief snipet involving Broderick as Feynman hearing about a "baby". This is most likely in reference to a pregnancy scare that took place when Arline was in the sanatorium. They thought they'd have to abort the baby, but it turned out she was pregnant and that she was just malnourished because of her illness. They didn't explain that very well though. Next they need to make a film about his marriage to Gweneth and his later years winning the Nobel and working on the Challenger. Even though I don't act, I could play Gweneth! hahaha, yeah right.

It's not an exciting movie, but it's not meant to be. This movie is for thinkers. It's a real love story with someone who could have been your neighbor, set against a time when people were just recovering from the Depression and being forced into WW2.I love what Broderick did with this film. In an age where people are jaded and "have" to be stimulated with action, big noises and blood to stay the boredom, he has given us a glimpse of a more innocent time -- maybe the last innocent time in American history -- and insight into the world of two very different people who obviously loved each other very much. Congratulations Mr. Broderick and thank you for telling their story. I wish I had met them both.

This was a very worthy project of the Brodericks, mother and son, and one which I would have liked to have tackled myself, having read and greatly enjoyed both "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?". To concentrate on the deep love story between Feynman and his first wife Arline, which coincided with his work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, was, I feel, a good filmic move in order to give the story an anchor (not to mention the fact that it truly is one of the most romantic real love stories I've ever heard of). Every movie adaptation has to make sacrifices, and this one obviously had to sacrifice all the other interesting stuff that happened to Feynman in the years after the war. So I don't have a problem with the quality of the script, and they also had a big enough budget to get the period feel.However, this film falls down in a major way on the characterisation of its lead character. Surprisingly, for Broderick is not a bad actor, he just comes across as being Broderick - a good looking young man who can look lovingly at Patricia Arquette and add a bit of passion to his voice when explaining complicated physics. But we've all seen the real Feynman on television and in film - he was LARGER than life! He was intensely charismatic, a brilliant expositor of scientific ideas and a great teacher.It seems to me that instead of succumbing to the temptation of directing, that Broderick should really have got someone else direct, so that he could concentrate on really getting inside the head of Feynman and reproducing on screen some of that charisma - something I'm quite sure Broderick is capable of doing.So ultimately this is a missed opportunity. You learn some of the facts about what happened, but you don't really meet the real Richard P. Feynman.

Cute and well meaning, if not exactly riveting. It should be given extra marks for trying very very hard not to be schmaltzy, even though it still is. British viewers may be reminded throughout of Frank Spencer - the modulation of Matthew Broderick's 'jewish' accent has distinctly ooh Bettyish notes.