Wick's Review

Summary - Really Great 4.5

Deeply affecting, intellectually engaging, and terrifically charismatic, A Beautiful Mind established Russell Crowe as an uncommonly talented movie star while also serving as a showcase for director Ron Howard, co-star Jennifer Connelly and everyone else involved with this Oscar-dominating production.

Acting - Really Great 4.5

Jennifer Connelly won the Acting Oscar, but it’s Russell Crowe’s performance that dazzles. At times internal, often ravingly external, he delivers a performance of great depth and sympathy, and one that ages from young man to elderly eminence. Already a megastar due to Gladiator, which came out a year earlier, Crowe proved himself an actor of uncommon range as John Nash, the possessor of a beautiful mind.

Connelly’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar was hardly undeserved, though her role as the strong yet long suffering spouse is rather formulaic compared to that of the schizophrenic to whom she finds herself bound. Connelly’s trademark beautiful intelligence serves her well, ensuring that she ably stands up to Crowe’s power and brilliance.

Paul Bettany, the great Ed Harris, and Josh Lucas stand out amongst the strong supporting cast.

• Bettany as the wild eyed and then supportive roommate¹
• Harris as the mysterious and dangerous DoD handler
• Lucas as Nash’s early rival and later patron.

Others delivering distinctive turns include Adam Goldberg, Christopher Plummer and Judd Hirsch.
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¹ Bettany and Connelly married in 2003. Perhaps they met while filming A Beautiful Mind?

Film - Great 4.0

Deserving of its acclaim, 2002’s Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscar winner first appears to be a charismatic story about an odd genius, then reveals a multi-leveled mystery, before resolving itself as a triumph of the human condition. Best Picture indeed. Along the way, it manages to teach a bit about schizophrenia and game theory.

Edge - Tame 1.4

Scenes of Nash being hauled away for psychiatric hospitalization and then subjected to insulin shock therapy are more than a little disturbing.

Reality - Glib 1.5

Heavily Hollywood-ized, the movie “is true to the spirit of Nash’s story,” according to Sylvia Nasar, the author of the book from which the movie was derived.¹

Apparently Nash’s hallucinations were purely auditory, not visual as the movie shows them. Further, most of the characters in the movie are amalgamations of real people. Additional fictions include the fact that Nash apparently swore off psychiatric meds after 1970, contrary to the story painted by the movie, while the movie’s professorial pen ceremony is a complete cinematic invention.

So be it. Hollywood will always be in the “truthiness” business, no matter the subject.
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¹ Source: Wikipedia

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