From BAFTA-winning documentarian Morgan Matthews comes an insightful, charming first feature about a socially awkward young boy finding his feet.
Nathan (Asa Butterfield – Hugo) is a teenage maths prodigy with mild autism. Living alone in the suburbs with his mother (Sally Hawkins – Happy Go Lucky), he instinctively navigates the world via logic and reason, and is constantly bewildered by her need to love him, preferring the easier company of his brilliant but afflicted maths tutor (Rafe Spall).
But when an international mathematics competition takes him from the suburbs to vivid Taipei, life flares into colour, and he’s overwhelmed by new sounds, tastes and music. Interacting with other, similarly gauche yet brilliant prodigies, and even making friends, he starts to find ways out of emotional isolation.
Adapted from Matthews’ own documentary, Beautiful Young Minds, X + Y utilises excellent performances from Butterfield, Hawkins and Spall, and a sensitively built story to movingly explore our basic need for human connection.