An Invisible Sign (2010)

An Invisible Sign is a sweet story about a girl whose father is mentally injured. She too seems to have a mental problem. She’s obsessed with numbers just as her father was before her.

On her tenth birthday her father tells her a gruesome story about a king who orders that every family in his kingdom must choose one person to be killed, to conserve resources. The baker’s family protests, saying they all want to die together. The king objects because he likes the pastries they make.

They finally decide that instead of killing one of the family members, each one will chop off some part of their body to help conserve the kingdom’s resources.

Ten-year-old Mona Gray is stunned that her father would tell her this horrible story, but when he has his mental collapse a few months later, it is even worse. Somehow she makes it through her childhood and then when she’s a young woman her mother throws her out of the house.

After Mona relocates to an attic apartment her mother does one more thing to help her – she lies to the elementary school principal telling her that Mona has a college degree in math and can be the new math teacher.

So Mona goes to work at the school… and meets children of many types: winsome, weak, boisterous, angry, and distressed. Her math teaching methods are creative, to say the least.

That’s all you’re getting out of me… except this one last detail. There’s a handsome and creative science teacher there, waiting to meet her.

This movie is unusual and moving. You will find that Mona’s re-evaluation of her life brings with it a message of hope for everyone who suffers from too much family drama.