A Documentary about fascinating science, and game-changing discoveries

In 2008, David Kaplan, a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins, began documenting the work being conducted at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe's center of nuclear research in Geneva, Switzerland. Driven by his desire to make scientific breakthroughs more accessible to the public, Kaplan eventually roped in physicist-turned-director Mark Levinson (

Cold Mountain

,

The Talented Mr. Ripley

) to direct what shaped up to be the documentary

Particle Fever

. (Film-editing titan Walter Murch was also lured by project due to a longtime interest in physics.)

The LHC, the world's largest particle accelerator, comprises a 17-mile loop of superconducting magnets; it smashes together protons in an attempt to isolate the most fundamental unit of matter, the Higgs boson.

Particle Fever

demystifies CERN's most ambitious undertaking-the biggest collaboration of scientific minds in history-and profiles six physicists who contribute to the search for (and ultimate discovery of) what sensationalist media have come to call "the God particle."

The film introduces concepts that the right-brained among us, possibly lacking a rudimentary understanding of physics, may not fully grasp. But Kaplan and others provide ample historical context and break down particle theory into clear and simple metaphors. Graphics further illustrate what are otherwise abstract ideas. In one sequence, a physicist explains the LHC experiment as the film cuts to an animation of two cars colliding into one another. Parts fly into the air and eventually turn into millions of multi-colored particles, one of which is the elusive Higgs.

But this otherwise brilliant documentary falters when it exaggerates its critical moments. On July 4, 2012, CERN scientists anxiously await the detection of the Higgs. The excitement of the scene already feels contrived because of the pomp and circumstance of the melodramatic classical score. When the Higgs finally appears, the score cuts to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," and the film initiates an ostentatious montage of scientific events from the past. The momentous occasion becomes a caricature, rendering the biggest scientific discovery in history anticlimactic.

Though the science is fascinating and the discoveries game-changing, the heart of

Particle Fever

lies in the humans it features, drawing on the curiosity and perseverance that has driven innovation for decades. Levinson and Kaplan mine the all-consuming nature of the scientists' profession to great effect: A CERN scientist who is rarely home teaches his kids physics party tricks at the dinner table; a college professor buys food from 7-Eleven during a long night of research; a newbie postdoc who works 16-hour days parades her laptop around a conference room to show off her data. In a crucial scene, Kaplan is asked by an economist what physicists hope to gain from all this trouble, to which he responds, "It could be nothing, other than understanding everything."