The Professor and the Madman (4 Stars)

This is the 24th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

It could be argued that the film doesn't fit the festival's theme. It's not a fantasy, horror or science fiction film, it's a true story about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The linguist James Murray (Mel Gibson) approached Oxford University with the wish to create a complete dictionary of every word in the English language, based on its usage from the 14th to the 19th Century. The work was too much for one man, so he asked for volunteers from the whole of the British Empire to read books and submit quotes. The main contributor was Dr. William Minor (Sean Penn).

Dr. Minor was a former army surgeon who fled from America to England because he thought he was being pursued by an army deserter. He shot an innocent man, thinking he was the deserter. He was considered insane and interred in Broadmoor Mental Hospital. He was given relative luxury within the hospital, two adjoining cells and a large library.

The two men became friends as the work progressed.

For the first 30 minutes of the film I felt bored. Then I slowly warmed up as I finally began to understand what the film was about. Maybe I'm biased. What impressed me most was the way the two men had a passionate love for the English language, like me.