Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

buiger For a film based on a true story, it could have been much better, much deeper, much more involving. This movie is overly simplistic, too straightforward. Everything is black or white, good or bad. Reality is never like this. A pity really, the premise is actually fascinating. The screenplay should have stuck much more to the truth, to actual events, they should have tried to portrait the characters faithfully, without trying to 'simplify' things for the viewer, to make the film more 'stylistically viable'.Oh yes, and this is one of the few movies (if not the only one) where Merryl Streeps presence was totally unnoticeable, if not unnecessary.

Iesius I'm a programmer, have been for years. One of the first things you learn in programing is that using single precision numbers is generally frowned upon.If the main character had read the first fifteen pages of virtually any book on programming, he would have known this as well. Also, with use of "find/replace all" one could make the changes in code relatively simply and be on their way to a PHD. Generally this would involve changing the word "single" to "double" and, perhaps a few storage bit lengths.Therefore I cannot relate to the main character's motivation or this story.

uncdrose At least I rented this movie through Redbox, which means I only lost a dollar on the rental. If anything, this movie made me realize what a vast cultural divide there is between Americans and people who come to our country. Liu Ye's entire focus was on coming up with such a phenomenal concept that he would win the Nobel Prize and give his parents great honor. He has no real perception of what a dissertation is supposed to be. He lives and thinks in clichés and is clueless about what is really important. The previews that I had seen of this movie were much better than the actual film. I am shocked that Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn were part of this production.

rlange-3 Better at being thought provoking than entertaining in the strict sense of the word, the core of this movie is the conflict between two brilliant men in a high stakes, high power academic setting. One is the Chinese student of modest means, Liu Xing, who comes to the US to study under Reiser, the brilliant American professor, who expects Xing to support his theory as a graduate student. When he doesn't, things go very badly.The acting is superb across the board. The scenic shots are good, and while the characters tend to exude excessive sentimentality at times, especially Streep, the often vicious nature of competition in academia is captured superbly.The simplistic viewpoint is that Liu Xing publishes an article attacking Reiser's theory through naiveté. More likely, he was less naive than conceited, and when he lost the game his ego fractured and he raised the stakes.There is good timing throughout, although at times it drags a bit it never really gets boring. One of the better movies to see.BTW: There is no math and no theory in the movie. This is about the people, not the theories involved.