Plot: Liu Xing is a scholarship boy from China, newly arrived in Salt Lake City, a graduate student in cosmology, in Utah to study in Professor Reiser's prestigious program. Back in China, Liu Xing's parents are proud of him, and he dedicates himself to fulfilling their hopes. All the graduate students in the program work on projects that extend and further Reiser's model of the origins of the universe. Liu Xing does well until his own theories move him away from Reiser's. Will Reiser and the department recognize Liu Xing's brilliance? Can the young man's benefactor, Joanna Silver, intercede?
Alternative Plot: Liu Xing (Ye Liu), a promising Chinese doctoral candidate accepted into an elite astronomy program in the United States, struggles to adjust to life in his new home. Xing finds an unlikely friend in university donor Johanna Silver (Meryl Streep) and a willing mentor in acclaimed professor Jacob Reiser (Aidan Quinn). But, when Xing's groundbreaking research begins to contradict Reiser's famed theories, Xing finds his dissertation derailed and his career in science speedily spiraling downward.
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