Even the most convinced enemies of mathematics will perhaps see this idiosyncrasy of theirs again after seeing Margherita's Theorem in theaters today with Wanted Cinema. And this despite the film directed by Anna Novion (Jeanne's Journey) showing the negative stereotypes all concentrated in the protagonist, namely Margherita (Ella Rumf), a nerdy girl with glasses and no make-up, obsessed with solving Goldbach's theorem, considered by experts to be unsolvable.
A theorem, the latter, on which she must present her personal decryption thesis to the university with the support of the severe Professor Werner (Jean-Pierre Darroussin).
But things in the institute's assembly hall are not going well, Margherita fills an enormous blackboard with mathematical symbols (a scene that is often repeated in this film), but in the end the result does not arrive, as she points out in the classroom with a certain perfidiousness another talent of the subject, the student Lucas (Julien Frison).
A small error in the theorem which on the one hand causes Margherita's self-esteem and will to collapse, but which also finally puts her into play in real life. So she gives up everything and, secretly from her mother (Clotilde Courau), she goes to live in an apartment with Noa (Conia Bonny), a dancer full of life.
Not only that, Margherita also discovers that, thanks to her mathematical mind, she can earn a lot of money playing Mahjong in the clandestine gambling dens of Paris.
For Margherita it is a new chapter in her life made up of the discovery of sex, clubs and disengagement, but in this new existence at a certain point mathematics also returns, this time accompanied by love.
After being presented at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and having obtained two nominations for the Cesars and won the award for best debut actress which went to Ella Rumpf, the film marks the return to directing, after a few years of absence, of director Anna Novion.
The latter says: "Characters like those played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Ella Rumpf are recurring in my films. They are individuals who cling to their certainties and who are afraid of opening up to others. Then something happens that forces them to change their course of things, to let go and transform vulnerability into strength".
And Novion again: "The world of mathematics - and consequently that of the Scuola Normale Superiore (or ENS) - has been little represented in films, just as a mathematical heroine has been even less so. My meeting with Ariane Mézard , one of the few and greatest French mathematicians, was decisive. We became friends instantly, we sort of understood each other, which was very touching. She is a sensitive, determined, sincere and affable woman. She radiates around her an incredible strength together with a strong vulnerability and a great self-awareness, without saccharine. He was also the first person who ever spoke to me about mathematics in an artistic sense, crossing it with poetry, imagination and everything that pushes me to being a director. While she was talking about her passion, it was as if she was also talking about mine."
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