The Oxford Murders (2008)

At Oxford University, a professor and a grad student work together to try to stop a potential series of murders seemingly linked by mathematical symbols.

Director:

Álex de la Iglesia (as Alex de la Iglesia)

Writers:

Álex de la Iglesia (screenplay) (as Alex de la Iglesia), Jorge Guerricaechevarría (screenplay) (as Jorge Guerricachevarria)

Stars:

Elijah Wood, John Hurt, Leonor Watling

6 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Elijah Wood	...	Martin
John Hurt	...	Arthur Seldom
Leonor Watling	...	Lorna
Julie Cox	...	Beth
Jim Carter	...	Inspector Petersen
Alex Cox	...	Kalman
Burn Gorman	...	Yuri Podorov
Dominique Pinon	...	Frank
Anna Massey	...	Mrs. Eagleton
Danny Sapani	...	Scott
Alan David	...	Mr. Higgins
Tim Wallers	...	Defense Lawyer
James Weber Brown	...	Doctor
Ian East	...	Howard Green
Charlotte Asprey	...	Howard Green's Wife

Storyline

Martin, a PhD student in mathematics, enrolls at Oxford in the hope of meeting his mentor, Professor Seldom. The young man manages to find lodging at Mrs. Eagleton's but in this house a stifling atmosphere prevails due to the landlady's attitude. Indeed Mrs. Eagleton, who happens to be a friend of Seldom's, is a haughty and unsympathetic woman who also stifles her daughter Beth. At the university, things do not fare much better as Martin is put in his place by his idol during one of Seldom's lectures. But his private life changes for the best as he starts an affair with Lorna, a beautiful girl he met during a game of squash. One night Seldom and Martin who find themselves at Mrs. Eagletons's discover her dead body. They are interrogated by the police. Soon afterwards they decide to lead their own private investigation...

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Plot Keywords:

riding a bicycle | symbol | lecture | landlady | oxford university | 

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Genres:

Crime | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language, sexual content/nudity and some violence/disturbing images

Details

Country:

Spain UK France

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 July 2010 (USA)

Also Known As:

Los crímenes de Oxford

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Canal+ España, Canal+, Eurimages

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The "Bormat's Last Theorem" that is solved in the movie, is a reference to Fermat's Last Theorem. Like Bormat's theorem in the movie, Fermat's theorem was widely considered to be (one of) the most difficult problems of the last three hundred years. It was solved fairly recently (in 1995 by Andrew Wiles). It was solved using elliptic curves, and the proof was first demonstrated at Cambridge. Like the proof of Bormat's theorem in the movie, the proving of Fermat's was a very big deal in the world of number theory.

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Goofs

(at around 14 mins) In the classroom scene, Martin announces that he believes in the number pi, and explains that by this he means the golden section, related to the Fibonacci sequence. The goof is that this number is universally referred to as phi, not pi, which is reserved for the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle.

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Quotes

Arthur Seldom: Poor old Guy Fawkes was ahead of his time. He tried to blow up the parliament, the king, lords, & the whole bloody government inside. Since then, every November the 5th we've had this civilized celebration where we burn his image... though nowadays I'd be hard pushed to tell you whether it's to commemorate his failure, or his brilliant idea.

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Crazy Credits

The background to the credits sequence is a representation of a blackboard full of equations and mathematical formulae.

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Connections

Referenced in Teen Wolf: The Tell (2011)

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Soundtracks

Frère Jacques
(uncredited)
Traditional
Sung by the children in the bus

User Reviews

complete failure

Rarely a film fails on so many levels. The film tries to say "deep things" but clearly neither the writer nor the director have a clue what they are talking about, so all the "profound" stuff is merely ridiculous (low point: Wittgenstein during WWI writing in his notebook, and that's only the introduction to the film). As a Monty Python sketch that might have been funny, but since the film is pretending to say something serious, it's just embarrassing. The acting is abysmal, the plot is silly and full of holes, for some incomprehensible reason there are two girls who suddenly fall in love with the main character, but there's no way to understand why (or how, since there's zero chemistry). For me, the worst part were the dialogues, though. At the beginning, the American student who just finds a boarding room with some woman who used to know a number of famous mathematicians, picks up a photo and then explains who the people on the photo are, why they are famous, and a short Wikipedia biography of their lives. Subtle. "Well," says the woman, "you did your homework". If only the scriptwriters, the director and the actors would have done the same.