All right, I admit it!! I did not see A Beautiful Mind in the theatre. Despite its release on video some months ago, I did not get around to renting it until late last week. (That last sentence, by the way, was not an attempt to make this review seem dated, although that will undoubtedly be the effect. Great move for my first review in over a year, if I do say so myself.) I watched the first forty minutes or so in the early evening before leaving the house for a couple hours. The early scenes reminded me of Good Will Hunting, only with cleaner language and nobody named Affleck. I knew basically what the movie was about, but didn't understand why it was taking so long to get there.

I started playing the tape again around midnight, hoping it would help me get to sleep.

Shortly after 1:30 AM I finished the film, and spent the bulk of the following day trying to get it out of my head. Then I came home and watched the entire thing again, which is something I rarely do so soon after seeing a movie.

A Beautiful Mind stars Russell Crowe as John Nash, a mathematical genius at Princeton (as opposed to Matt Damon's character in Hunting, who is extremely reluctant to use his intelligence to better himself, Nash is beside himself to find an original idea so he can make a name for himself in the field). We're never told anything about Nash's childhood or his parents, though I'm sure that information is out there in the book by Sylvia Nasar (whose name I hope I got right). But it becomes clear that Nash is borderline-obsessive about finding this original idea of his, to the point of becoming something of a running joke to his classmates. He befriends his British roommate Charles, played by Paul Bettany (Chaucer in A Knight's Tale). Eventually Nash's original idea becomes clear to him, although it never really does become clear to us; it has something to do with social interaction and playing games. When we next see Nash it's five years later and he's teaching at MIT, as well as working for the government.

That's where I left off, and very quickly after I got back to the movie all hell started to break loose. Suffice to say at the moment that all is not as it seems to Nash, and it's a damn good thing for him that he falls in love and gets married (to Alicia, played by the Oscar-winningly beautiful Jennifer Connelly). As depicted in the film, Nash's subsequent bouts with schizophrenia would have done him in had he not had Alicia for support.

This movie does have its flaws, though the acting is not one of them. Russell Crowe plays his character with a complex mix of arrogance, charm, single-minded obsession, and just basic intensity of emotion. As Nash's condition deteriorates, there is a certain look that enters Crowe's eyes that shows how much he identified with his character. Chiller line: "I was so scared you weren't real." Connelly deserved her award, though her first few scenes don't really give her a lot to work with; it's only after Nash and Alicia are married that she is given a challenge, and rises to meet it. Ed Harris is a standout, as always, here playing a mysterious "Big Brother" type. Christopher Plummer, Josh Lucas, Paul Bettany, and Judd Hirsch all are strong support for the performances of Crowe and Connelly as well. As for the direction, I do believe Ron Howard made some good choices in telling this story, showing us only enough shots to make us think we know exactly what's going on.

I did some online reading about the real John Nash, and it turns out the screenplay takes some pretty heavy liberties with his life. The nature of his delusions were similar in tone, though quite different in actuality. Also, he and the real Alicia divorced just a couple years after they were married, and did not reconcile until fairly recently. And significantly, John Nash is said to be a much ruder person according to Nasar's book than he was shown to be in most of Ron Howard's movie. I think in a way it would have been a more interesting choice to make him (and Alicia for that matter) less sympathetic to the audience, because this would also make him more human. As it stands there is just a bit more emphasis on the healing powers of true love in the movie, than I'm entirely comfortable with. There are also a few bits that seem cliched, such as Nash saying "Shh... they might be listening" in the mental hospital, and Alicia's assertion that God must be a painter because "we have so many colors." But those are minor difficulties.

All in all, it's not a GREAT film. But it is a VERY GOOD film. I think it has the potential to make people really look at schizophrenia as a human condition and not just a dumb I'm-schizophrenic-and-so-am-I joke. The emotions are more real than the "facts" we're given, but that's only to be expected of a movie that summarizes a person's entire life in 140 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older