Movie Review: Oxford Murders

Reviews I used to write for ARENA magazine

At the height of World War I, amidst flying shrapnel and gunfire, a lone soldier is in relentless pursuit of an answer to an enigma that has plagued mankind since time immemorial: Can we know truth?

The great thinkers of history have often sought a singular, irrefutable answer, similar in certainty that 2 and 2 makes 4. What better way to look for truth than using a language free from the entendres of man? It is in mathematics that the Tractus Logico-Philosophicus is borne, leading Lieutenant Ludwig Wittgenstein to a horrifying conclusion that beyond mathematics, there is no such thing as absolute truth.

This deduction is shared by Oxford Professor Arthur Seldom (John Hurt). However, visiting American protagonist Martin (Elijah Wood) believes otherwise. Whether out of naivete or pure intellect, he believes that if we discover the secrets of numbers, we’ll discover the hidden meaning of reality.

Even the smallest snowflake contains a numerical basis in its structure he quotes, but when his ailing landlady is murdered for no reason, the young student starts to find his faith severely tested.

Seldom is Holmes to Martin’s Watson and during the course of deciphering the killer’s cryptic clues in order to thwart the next murders, mathematical and physics theorems like Wittgenstein’s Finite Rule Paradox and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle fly thick and fast. The narrative is interspersed with metaphysical and philosophical debates between Martin and Seldom regarding reality and the chaotic happenstance of life itself.

Stripped of its nerdspeak, Oxford Murders is a convoluted murder mystery. It would have done well, save for the incidental incompleteness of plotlines. The director tried so hard at making a thinking film that the murder mystery portion was left behind. We felt little sense of emergency other than morbid curiosity on who was next, not that we cared if they died either. Even as we stepped into the shoes of our geeky protagonists, there was little reason to care about their motives or pursuits. In terms of acting, Hurt excels as world-weary mentor and kudos to Wood for successfully shaking off Frodo. However, once the on-screen debates end, there is little chemistry between the two leads and the eventual unveiling of the killer feels like a non-event.

Can we know truth? Truth is, though Murders often forgets its pulse as a murder mystery, the movie remains undeniably engaging and watchable save for the spaghetti complimenting sex scene.