An Invisible Sign

An Invisible Sign is a 2010 American drama film directed by Marilyn Agrelo and starring Jessica Alba, J. K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Sophie Nyweide, and Bailee Madison. Based on the 2001 novel An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender, the film is about a painfully withdrawn young woman who, as a child, turned to math for comfort after her father became ill, and now as an adult, teaches the subject and must help her students through their own crises. For her performance in the film, Bailee Madison received a 2011 Young Artist Award nomination for Best Performance in a Feature Film. Despite this, the film was panned by critics and grossed $49,859 at the box office. Plot Mona Gray (Jessica Alba) systematically withdraws from life into a world of mathematics after a mysterious mental illness leaves her father (John Shea) incapacitated and a shell of his former self. Forced by her mother to move out on her own, Mona gets a job as a math teacher at an elementary school. There she discovers she has an unorthodox talent for teaching and finds herself thrust back into life again, with children to care for, and a reason to live. Mona takes special interest in one of her students, Lisa Venus (Sophie Nyweide), whose mother is dying of cancer. When fellow teacher Ben Smith (Chris Messina) shows romantic interest in her, Mona reverts to some of her old self-destructive impulses. Eventually, Mona discovers her value in the love she shows her students, and Ben's patience is finally rewarded (which she didn’t owe him in any capacity) as the two find love in each other.