With such a ponderous title and its twin themes of the tragic death of a spouse and the development of the first atomic bomb, you'd expect something more substantial than Matthew Broderick's debut feature, Infinity. Based on two autobiographical bestsellers by Nobel-winning nuclear physicist Richard Feynman (Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What People Think?), it focuses on the maverick scientist's nine-year romance with his first wife, Arline, ending with her death from TB and the successful completion of the Manhattan Project, for which the young Feynman worked in a minor capacity.

As Feynman, Broderick has a goofy charm but little profundity and passion, and Patricia Arquette as the lively Arline seems to be practicing her deathbed scene throughout the movie. Although it does touch on the ironic paradox of a loved one's dying while the device capable of killing the human race springs feverishly to life, Infinity is at best a pleasant trifle, bringing as much light to the big questions as the commercial for the car with the similar name. At the Copley Place, the Kendall Square, and the Chestnut Hill and in the suburbs.