4/12 For Reel Score | 2/5 Stars

A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, and Good Will Hunting are remembered as great films about mathematics because they absorb us and move us with their human stories on top of making math look and feel interesting. And then there is The Julia Set, which manages to make its mathematics and human story equally uninteresting; its plot, characters, and dialogue have the dimension of a student film, and its attempts at dramatic and emotional beats all fall flat. Nikki Bryne’s screenplay, at best, needs extensive rewrites, if not a start from scratch, because the elements presented to us are barely worthwhile to begin with.

It tells the story of an ambitious college student named Julia (Chase Infiniti), whom the film introduces by showing her flirting with her teaching assistant Pascal (Christopher Briney). The movie quickly establishes her as a genius in mathematics, though reasons for that are not given. From what I observe, the existence of a math genius mostly comes down to genetics, since Julia is not seen working harder than her peers and seems to be able to solve impossible equations without breaking a sweat. This makes the movie’s climax, which I will not spoil though it seems obvious based on the premise, underwhelming. If Julia’s such a genius, what doubt would there be whether she succeeds or not? The pedantic aspects of The Julia Set fall devastatingly flat despite a standout performance from Nina Hoss as a blunt and cunning professor.

The movie is really about how Julia and Pascal fall in love and become distractions from each other. Red flags are prominent from the get-go, including the mentor-student dynamic of the relationship itself, but they push on, declaring their love for each other with the depth of high school banter. In fact, most scenes involving their relationship are unconvincing, because we never quite witness what they do for each other, only what they do to each other. Pascal invites Julia to meet his parents, a bitter professor (the reliable Jason Isaacs) and his wife (Gillian Anderson). Pascal’s resentment towards his father is one of those potentially interesting threads of the story that is merely alluded to. One of the film’s only good scenes involves an intense chess match, and shows the potential of the movie.

Now about Julia herself. She comes from a lower class family with an attentive mother and a brother with Down syndrome. These set-ups should humanize the character but it never does, instead these elements seem manufactured to make the protagonist likable. Chase Infiniti, the eye-catching star of One Battle After Another, is not able to do a lot here. She embodies an inhibition that makes the character empty, especially there seems no trace of interiority.

Because its protagonist is never brought to anywhere interesting, The Julia Set rotates between scenes of people telling Julia what she should do and Julia not following their advice. The film is simply a flat story with predictable construction until its penultimate scene, which is insulting to the audience’s intelligence. In that scene Byrne deliberately paints a character into unreasonably hostile territory. She states in black and white where the moral of the story lies, allowing no interesting contemplations of its themes. I was talking to a friend after the movie where both of us struggled to say anything beyond basic observations. The movie allows no interpretations, no insights. Film is unlike math; it has no definitive solution. The mistake of The Julia Set is to assume the existence of such.

Acting/Casting 1

Visual effects/Editing 1

Story/Message 0

Entertainment Value 0

Music score/Soundtrack 1

Reviewer's Preference 1

TIFF 2026 | Movie Review: Math and Storytelling Fall Equally Flat in "The Julia Set"