A Beautiful Mind

Rating

Director

Ron Howard

Screenplay

Akiva Goldsman (Book by Sylvia Nasar)

Length

135 min.

Starring

Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Vivien Cardone, Judd Hirsch, Josh Lucas, Anthony Rapp, Christopher Plummer

MPAA Rating

PG-13 (For intense thematic material, sexual content and a scene of violence)

Review

When you look at the genius in the world, you can understand how it can be exploited and ridiculed by the masses. A Beautiful Mind is a touching, yet disturbing film about one brilliant mathematician who fosters changes in the world and discovers them in himself.

Russell Crowe plays tortured mathematician John Nash, a brilliant man whose life’s devotion is to discover new mathematical theorems based on everyday experiences. He watches pigeons fight over food, trying to establish a pattern; he examines football players and their methods attempting to find a common thread; and eventually watches men pursue women and uncovers how a "divide and concur" approach can breed success.

All of these methodologies are developed in college, after which, he takes a job with a prestigious scientific institution where he is approached by a military agent, William Parcher (Ed Harris). Parcher enlists his services to help break enemy codes. Nash knows and understands he must keep this job a secret or be turned over to the Soviets.

When he begins to believe that his life is endanger, his erratic and suspicious behavior draw the attention of his family and colleagues who believe that he is crazy, seeing phantoms and feeling that everyone is out to get him.

A Beautiful Mind takes us through the disturbed and innocent mind of a brilliant individual. It examines human reaction to the unknown and the undesired. Nash takes steps forward and back throughout his career, never fully understanding why everyone sees him differently. Crowe does decently well with the character giving him all the needed depth and compassion that Akiva Goldsman’s script denies him. We don’t have a sense of who Nash is as a person without Crowe’s performance.

It is that element of the screenplay that causes the film to suffer. Lacking great dialogue and significantly altering the facts of the real life person. It is based on the true story of John Nash a man who heard hundreds of voices. In A Beautiful Mind, those voices are personified to make it easier on a broader audience; However, had Goldsman and director Ron Howard thought about their subject and the power and possibilities of the story, a more invigorating tale could have been told with Nash hearing said voices. The choice to shoot these voices as flesh-and-blood people does make the desired goals of the screenplay more palatable to the masses but denies a better director and screenwriter the opportunity to make a more intriguing and visually artistic picture.

Aside from Crowe’s worthy performance, Harris and Paul Bettany (as Nash’s friend and college roommate) are all perfunctory. Harris has long been an unheralded presence on the screen. His work in films like The Truman Show and The Hours often being usurped by flashier roles, does little to support or hinder his career. Bettany gives the kind of performance that you expect from an actor of his talents and doesn’t stretch himself as an actor.

Lending satisfactory support as Nash’s wife Alicia is Labyrinth alum Jennifer Connelly. Her career-high work in Requiem for a Dream stands so far above anything else she’s done that Connelly seems to comfortable in her performance. She walks through her performances like many actresses would and provides nothing exceptional to the role.

There is an underlying theme that feels as if it was neglected and only lightly touched upon. It’s about our ability to question what is real and what is not. Could the world around us be an invention of our own imagination? Is our best friend really just a figment of thought? Will something cease to exist just because we stop believing it’s real? Howard and Goldsman present a convincing case with their double twist for this argument but is that really their intention or are we just developing it from our own imagination? We cannot really answer that question for A Beautiful Mind is paint-by-numbers filmmaking at its best. Everything has a purpose. Everything has a place. Nothing is out of the ordinary; sub-, extra- or otherwise.

Review Written

December 26, 2006

Original Review

Note: This is a Resurfaced review written in 2002 or earlier. For more information, please visit this link: Resurfaced Reviews.

When you look at the genius in the world, you can understand how it can be exploited and ridiculed by the masses. “A Beautiful Mind” is a touching, yet disturbing film about one brilliant mathematician who fosters changes in the world and discovers them in himself.

Russell Crowe plays tortured mathematician John Nash, a brilliant man whose life’s devotion is to discover new mathematical theorems based on everyday experiences. He watches pigeons fight over food, trying to establish a pattern; he examines football players and their patterns, attempting to find a common thread and eventually watches the masculine pursuit of women and the how a “divide and concur” approach can breed success.

After university, he takes a job with a prestigious scientific institution where he is approached by a military agent, William Parcher (Ed Harris). Parcher enlists his services to help break enemy codes. Nash knows and understands he must keep this job a secret or be turned over to the Soviets.

When he begins to believe that his life is endanger, his erratic and suspicious behavior draw the attention of his family and colleagues who believe that he is crazy, seeing phantoms and feeling that everyone is out to get him.

“A Beautiful Mind” takes us through the disturbed and innocent mind of a brilliant individual. It examines human reaction to the unknown and the undesired. Nash takes steps forward and back throughout his career, never fully understanding why everyone sees him differently. Crowe does phenomenally with the character giving him a deep compassion and conviction needed to breathe life into the real person he was based on.

Harris continues his tradition of superb characterization as the uncaring and demanding agent. The rest of the ensemble is good, including Jennifer Connelly who plays John Nash’s love interest and eventual wife Alicia whose sympathy and ire are evident throughout.

The film is well paced and has a double twist. Just when you think you know what’s going to happen next, it gives one twist, then twists again causing us to question reality itself, both Nash’s and our own. Is what we see real and if so, does everyone else see it? If we stop believing in something we see everyday, will it cease to exist? Those are the kinds of questions “A Beautiful Mind” presents and demands the audience to address.

Even without its intellectual pursuits, any armchair critic will find enjoyment in this sometimes placid, frequently exciting Ron Howard film.

Review Revisions

Normally, a film critic revising his own work is rare, but there are times when it must be done. “A Beautiful Mind” presents that seldom opportunity and herein is my rationale for shifting my opinion of the film negatively. Prior to having viewed the film, I knew very little of Nash and, when seeing the film for the first time, I thought I understood the truth. However, after much that I have heard about the honesty or fraudulence of the events of his life, I have come away with mixed feelings.

There are talks about the omission of homosexual interludes or bigoted statements. Since film is purely an adaptive medium that must adjust events to make them fit into the timeframe of a motion picture as well as within the parameters of good taste. In the above cases, omissions are acceptable.

The most disturbing and unavoidable omission is not an exclusion, but in actuality an inclusion. Nash never saw other people, nor imagined friends. It is this change in the story that should make audiences feel cheated. Some will claim that the film is ‘inspired’ by the life of John Nash and any changes are for the benefit of the film. Inspiration is an acceptable way to approach filmmaking, but usually a movie inspired by someone’s life does not take as many liberties with the story. “A Beautiful Mind” plays like a biopic and because of this, it is responsible to its audience not to invent situations or characters that never existed in reality.

“A Beautiful Mind” did a good job of dragging its audience along on a voyage that seemed to be authentic, but upon reflection, it was nothing but an illusion, like Nash’s visions.

Awards Prospects

“A Beautiful Mind” is the kind of film that garners lots of attention. With Howard’s previous snub in the Director category, look for this film to earn him a nomination as well as nods for Picture, Actor for Crowe and Adapted Screenplay. Other potential nods for Connelly & Harris in the Supporting categories, Original Score, Cinematography and Editing.

Review Written
December 21, 2001