User Reviews

A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) Rating: 10/10

A Beautiful Mind's greatest achievement, in my humble opinion, is the way it makes schizophrenia accessible to "sane" people. The general public knows schizophrenics tend to talk to themselves, repeat certain actions and do things generally at odds with the norm. But why? It's nearly impossible for a "sane" individual to understand why this happens...and more importantly, what that feels like. Without this essential empathy, many people become frustrated with the mentally ill, asking why patients can't pull themselves together and just bear up. We express this same impatience with the criminally insane who act upon delusions with disastrous results. It is incomprehensible.

A Beautiful Mind does all it can to change that, and it succeeds. Unless you are familiar with John Nash's story, you probably won't guess he's schizophrenic until part-way into the movie. He's eccentric, abrupt, and highly intelligent, but doesn't seem crazy. His delusions are as real as reality to Nash, and likewise, they are real to the audience, who cannot tell the difference between truth and delusion.

Incidentally, I came across a review from a "professional critic" who blasted A Beautiful Mind for including "all that spying stuff that had nothing to do with Nash's work that was thrown in for Hollywood thrill." I feel bad for that chap, since he missed the entire point of the film. But that just proves Ron Howard's genius in creating a picture of insanity indistinguishable from reality.

There are some truly shocking moments in A Beautiful Mind. When Alicia finds her husband's secret cache of newspaper clippings behind their house, I was eerily reminded of Jack Nicholson's wife in The Shining discovering his endless, typewritten pages of the same phrase. The scene that follows, culminating with Nash's realization that his delusions are indeed a false reality is brilliant. In a moment, remembering Marcee, Nash has a flash of insight, and he finally accepts his illness -- ironically, through his intellect. When Nash imagines that someone is going to harm Alicia, he lunges at her -- and only through his eyes do we see how a seemingly senseless act of violence is a gesture of love, filtered through the smog of delusion.

Now my take on the acting: Superb in every sense of the word. Russell Crowe is incredible. I can't stress that enough. There's never any question about the authenticity of his character. Crowe doesn't rely on his elaborate makeup to age Nash -- his walk, words, and voice do that elegantly in the movie's end. Crowe will get at least another Oscar nomination out of this one. And, he better win. Jennifer Connelly is amazing as well. And when Crowe and Connelly are put together, extraordinary chemistry erupts, they just gel together, they really belong with one another. Some people have had problems with the romance part of the movie, saying that the way John and Alicia even started seeing each other wasn't very realistic and why Alicia would stay with John after he becomes distant. But, I think that maybe it started out as just a crush, you know, and the math question she showed him was just her excuse for going to his office and she already knew she was going to ask him out before hand. Maybe she's just attracted to the kind of person Nash is? Who knows? A lot of people are attracted to the "weirdest" things sometimes. The crush took over the fact that he sort of insulted her work and she still asked him anyway. When you're around someone you like so much you can't help but be fooled by them. I can't really explain it, but I can understand why she still asked him to dinner. And I guess if you love someone as much as Alicia loved John, then you would stick with them through anything. Even how distant he became, she still stuck with him.

Moving on, I think Ed Harris is, as always, great. Harris continues to prove that, simply because he's flawless. With delusions like these, no wonder Nash was torn between treatment and "spying."

Simply put, A Beautiful Mind is a film which extends far beyond the 2 hours and 15 minutes that you will spend viewing it in the theater. The characters continued to haunt me after the movie (and still do), thanks to the Oscar-inducing performances by Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and all of the supporting players. They are not merely acting, yet are transformed into the characters, leaving no trace of a line between their part and reality.

Of course a film is only as good as a screenplay would allow, and the story contained within is written in a way that compliments everything that is truly great about A Beautiful Mind. Ron Howard contributes truly inspiring work to this film, and I hope that the critics remember him when awards are being given out.

All I can tell you now is that if you're looking for an emotionally-charged movie that will make you cry, but still filters in some very funny moments as to lighten things up every now and then, with near perfect acting, cinematography, directing, editing and a screenplay which will cause the story of John Nash to inspire you, then consider A Beautiful Mind.

I hope a lot of people see this film. Not just because Russell Crowe is a hunk or because it's a Ron Howard piece, but because you will learn something important. You will learn why compassion is an absolute must when dealing with the mentally ill. You won't glare at the next person you see muttering to themselves. And when someone you love is dealing with a disorder, be it schizophrenia or depression, you won't ask them to "pull themselves together." You will understand why they need your love -- because they are just as confused as you are.

In closing, if Russell Crowe isn't awarded the Best Actor Oscar this year, then my faith in movies and its rewards system will be seriously tarnished.

I think its a good idea to know as little as possible about this movie before seeing it. Now that I've seen it, the commercials on television seem to be giving away too much. With that in mind DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT!

Its a hard movie to pinpoint. Its not like any other movie I've ever seen, in that a character exists that is not real. John Nash's mind is the reality of the movie and its not until the movie is half over that you realize this and its jarring that you've been taken on a ride with this man's illness, and accepted it as the real world. Its also a very heartbreaking thing.

From the middle point, John and you see the world differently because he starts to receive treatment.

Russell Crowe does not overdo it for a minute and turns in his customary brilliant performance. Would not surprise me at all if he were to win his second Best Actor Oscar in March 2002. He really is that good.

Just as good but with less screen time is the beautiful and beautifully talent Jennifer Connelly, who the world may finally get to see in a mainstream movie. Her chemistry with Crowe is vital to the movie and neither of them disappoint the audience at all in that respect.

I enjoyed it immensely and felt like I had seen a movie when it was over. I was shown a person at their best and the worse and everything in between, by a masterful actor at the top of his game.

I am sure Ron Howard deserves a lot of credit that he won't get, too.

The story of John Forbes Nash doesn't seem like the subject matter anyone would want to make a film of, but Ron Howard brings forth his life-story in a way that makes one forget he was also the man behind 80s fluff such as SPLASH and WILLOW.

A life destined to excel once he discovers and cracks his "game theory," John Forbes Nash is, however, a man disconnected with his surroundings and reality. He can't even approach a girl without fumbling his way through an especially creepy introduction, and at the same time he can't stand losing a simple mind-game with his friend. At the same time, four other people make their appearances in Nash's life and all three are destined to change his life forever.

The first of them is a college friend Charlie (Paul Bettany of GANGSTER NO. 1) who later introduces Nash to his young daughter Marcee, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly), whom he marries, and a sinister figure: William Parcher (Ed Harris). Parcher has special designs for Nash: he wants him to use his keen code-cracking skills for special top-secret assignments involving the Russians and other obscure elements and on one night Nash gets to see just how dangerous the enemy is as he and Parcher are shot at after Nash delivers some information to a strange mansion posing as an intelligence office.

It's not long before Nash becomes consumed with finding the perfect code and aided by the omni-present Parcher, who supplies Nash with a security code embedded into his own skin, he dives headlong into a nightmare of numbers and codes and soon enough collapses into full-fledged schizophrenia which will require shock treatment and an arduous recovery period. Alicia, instead of moving on, forcefully stays by his side even when he has a dangerous regression and almost kills their baby child.

Stories like this require a tight script and thorough knowledge of the circumstance of mental illness as well as the person in question, in this case Nash. Howard directs Nash's progressive descent into his mental breakdown with ease and in a way where we're not sure if anyone who surrounded Nash is real -- the way he introduces Charlie, Marcee, and especially Parcher and the covert office is spectacular and shows just how strong schizophrenia can be in inducing its victims to completely believe what they are seeing and hearing.

And then there are the performances. I don't think I need to say anything which hasn't been said of Russell Crowe. He is, right now, the only living actor who has the guts and balls to put his masculinity aside and dive head-first into the roles he plays. His screen presence oozes a magnetic, masculine power (and in one scene it's clear the man is built) but that doesn't overcome his characterization of Nash. If anything, he uses his physicality as an asset to clumsily walk around, and there is one scene later in the movie when he has returned to teach classes. He walks with the shuffle of someone who's lost in his own world. It would be hard-pressed for anyone to see the staccato waddle and the glazed eyes that he wouldn't be talking to himself in full-fledged conversations, and the hippie who mocks him, unnoticed, expresses Anyone's reaction. We know this is a genius, but one who has become damaged goods.

Then there's Jennifer Connelly. An actress who as of yet has avoided selling out to blatant commercialism, her presence is as powerful as Crowe's. Quiet but intense, she is the foundation of which Crowe's feet rest on and without her he might as well be dead. Just one scene, when she is about to discover just how crazy her husband is and his colleagues are trying to stop her: just watch her reel around and casually but with authority slap one of them squarely in the face and continue on, undeterred. Marvelous acting. Her Oscar is justified.

The entire supporting cast is uniformly brilliant. Ed Harris nails his creepy role as the imaginary Parcher. Paul Bettany gives off friendly dependency -- the friend who won't go away, even though he, too, isn't real. Judd Hirsch, Adam Goldberg, and Christopher Plummer provide solid support in small roles.

A complex movie about mental illness as well as the power of love and the triumph of the soul (even if love -- the devotion between Alicia and John -- is excruciatingly strained at times), A BEAUTIFUL MIND is truly, a beautiful experience and justly won the Oscar for Best Movie and Director and should have also won Best Actor, but Russell Crowe will stick around for quite some time giving powerhouse performances. He is one strong actor to follow. I know I will.

I wasn't actually planning on going to see "A Beautiful Mind" in the first place, but as it was, I was convinced by the friend that accompanied me that it was truly something to see. And now, after seeing it, I thank her for that. Instead of spending two and a half hours watching George Clooney and Matt Damon rob casinos or Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore dealing with their problems in New Foundland, I found myself pulled into another kind of story, a powerful, emotional story of how one man learned to battle his own demons and dazzle the world.

"A Beautiful Mind", based on the novel by Sylvia Nasar, is the story of John Forbes Nash Jr., the genius mathematician, whose life suddenly takes a turn for the worse when he is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. After fierce battles with his inner self, he overcomes this and returns to win the Nobel Prize in 1994 for his brakethrough game theory in economics that he had been working on during his years in Princeton University in the 1950s.

John Nash, portrayed very well by the versatile and brilliant Russell Crowe, is a partly shy, yet ironic and sometimes even arrogant, gifted young student studying in Princeton University in the late 1940s. He dedicates his time to numbers and equations, set on to solving every problem at hand, rather than mingling with co-students on the football field or in the pub.

Nash is later on introduced to Sylvia (played by the lovely Jennifer Connely), a physics student attending his classes. She helps Nash to open up and eventually discover love.

Enter William Parcher (played by Ed Harris), a shadowy and mysterious agent working for the Department of Defense. Parcher, after realizing Nash's ability to see mathematical and geometrical patterns everywhere, approaches Nash with a mission that involves national security.

Now, amidst his work and relationship, Nash is suddenly thrown into a whirlwind of emotions and disbeliefs as he is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. And this is the part where "A Beautiful Mind" truly shines: in portraying the disorder from Nash's own point of view. In a powerful and emotional way, it shows the viewer how difficult an illness like this can be to not only face, but overcome, something that people today may not always realize.

Before seeing this movie, I must admit that I was a bit afraid that casting such a well-known actor as Russell Crowe as the main character would ruin the image of John Nash, forcing the viewer to see Crowe, rather than Nash. This is a common problem when dealing with famous actors, but to my surprise, it didn't much bother me much. And the same goes for Ed Harris.

As a movie, "A Beautiful Mind" is absolutely great (It is so much more, but I cannot find the words to praise it enough, so I will simply go with "great" =). Not only does it have a strong point and an importaint message to the viewer, but it delivers it in a touching and sensitive, partly even humourous kind of way, with the help of powerful actors, a great screenplay and even a few special effects to boost it up. So for anyone whose grown tired of the consant pointless action-movies out there, and instead want to immerse themselves into a character-driven story that might actually bring a tear to your eyes, I sincerily recommend "A Beautiful Mind".

It's not that common people knew John Forbes Nash jr., a Princeton mathematician after he recieved Nobel Prize for his "Game Theory". It's not that people started to know him after Sylvia Nasar wrote his biography. What made John Nash a household name is Ron Howard's brilliant direction and Russell Crowe's excellent performance as the scizophrenic genious.

Russell Crowe exceeds all of his past performances in this film. He did not act as Nash, he became Nash. His facial expression while solving a problem, his innocent and shy smile during romantic sequences and his vacant look during the time of scizophrenia are in a word magnificient, and shockingly original. Jennifer Connelly also put a beautiful performance as his devoted wife Alicia. The actings of these two are the core of success of this film. I am still in a dark why Crowe is denied his Oscar for the best actor.

Ron Howard changed the original story in some places a bit, but only to make it more enjoyable. His main goal was to feature Nash's point of view to his world and he has succeeded totally. The shot in the cafe` where Nash first understands the significance of the application of his theory is brilliantly taken and is the best example of Howard's genious as a filmmaker. The make-up throughout the film is drop-dead gorgeous as they showed Nash and Alicia aging in the course of the film. Thus the Russell Crowe in the beginning and the Russell Crowe in the end become two different entities due to the superb art of the make-up artists.

A Beautiful Mind will be considered one of the best biopics ever. It is dramatic, descriptive, detailed, reflective, enthusiastic, heroic and in all, a beautiful film. 10/10.

Spoilers herein.

So frustrating. Once again we have an inept film about mathematics. Hard to understand: film is visceral, drawing from visually-based insights as abstractions of reality. That also describes the most exciting kind of mathematics.

The magic of the Lord of the Rings books wasn't in the story, but in the creation of an alternative world, complete with cosmology. The film lacks that inner reality and instead focuses on the story, basically one escape after another. But it is rousing good fun on that level. And so we have here. As with `Lord,' `Mind' knows where all the emotional strings are and pulls enough of them in the right order that we get successfully manipulated. But this film misses the opportunity of a lifetime to merge the images of math and film.

There are three good opportunities here, all missed:

The Nash Story Part 1: Mathematics is a matter of invention more than discovery. A clever mathematician can shape abstractions that influence all thought that follows. It is as close to God as one can get, and since most of the world is imaginary, one can argue that God will be bested at some point -- if it hasn't already occurred. There are conflicting factors involved: you need to be novel, but it must bind to some part of the world that exists. The unfamiliar made familiar; which can be done through `proofs' which is a way of presenting the new in such a way that everyone believes the world was made that way all along.

Which means you have to be extraordinarily clever in approaching a problem from an odd angle and finding the linkage. Nash was the best mind of the century in this first (challenging both Einstein and Von Neumann!). That's saying a whole lot. It means you have to have an intense focus that you maintain uninterrupted for months. The very idea exhausts. Nash had this in spades, perhaps his most remarkable quality because it was something he taught himself to do. Finally, mathematics is a verbal art, constructed in narratives with colleagues, not intrinsically in funny symbols as cartoons and movies would have it.

So think of this: you must talk with peers using a common vocabulary; but you must not in order to stay important and novel. You must shape the new in small terms, but have a global focus, holding mental orgasms for months. The tension between reaching far into the cosmos and keeping it in a conversation must have been immense. The book on which this film is based focuses on the social devolution of Nash, but the more interesting side is where his unanchored voyages took him. The film didn't mine this lode. In reality, Nash was not incompetent with soliciting sex: in fact he was very smooth and conducted multiple simultaneous bisexual affairs. That was part of the focused exercise to relate to the `world as-is.' Where he was incompetent was in mapping his visions to our lesser reality.

The Nash Story 2: Nash's madness was almost certainly caused by his `breaking' his mind by straying too far from reality to get outside this large problem he was working. The conspiracies came not from cold war silliness but something far deeper: Phil Dick science fiction and Kabbalah. Not stupid numbers but topologies (forms). Not codes but manifold patterns in higher spaces. Literally extraterrestrial voices. By the way: Alicia was as crazy, but I suppose since she had an uninteresting mind, it is not worth watching.

The most powerful scene (in the book at least) is when Nash and poet Robert Lowell were in the same `hospital.' Lowell entered Nash's room and mind daily and held forth on both for visitors. `Every word was his best friend.' Quite possibly the century's most imaginative and literate minds melded. I would have loved to have been there. (In fact I was in a thin way. I took the class Nash taught right after he was first committed -- his acolyte emulated his manner.)

The Nash Story 3 is the story about the Nobel. Uncle Alfie didn't like mathematicians (read `Jews') so refused to establish a prize in math. The `economics' was an independent prize grafted onto the Nobels as an `almost' Nobel. Most scientists are uncomfortable with economics being treated like physics because it is more obviously a constructed reality. Nash's prize prompted a debate within the Nobel community that destroyed the economics prize and is eating away at whether there is anything left but math when you skim more than superficially. It is one of the most profound institutional self-examinations ever. The film didn't mine this lode either.

All missed opportunities. Wouldn't you like to have been transported rather than merely made to cry?

What we get instead is a powerful actor and a competent director. Crowe's trick is to project his character not only into the space around him but into the space of the following scene -- largely by physical motion, usually involving the forehead. Good. But the mannerisms are not those of a mathematician in the Wiener tradition. The accent is not accurate, just an excuse to give new rhythms to the bland lines. The effect of the madness is not true, reflecting prior movies more than reality.

Howard's directing is completely without risk, art, interest. The one effect he tries is a bunch of fiddling with glass: shots through windows, often with (irrelevant) mathematical doodles. These are amateurish because the film has no inner cosmology within which one can register the metaphor. Compare this with the use of glass in `Spy Game.' MIT has a specific, abstract feel that is very easy to capture, but it somehow eluded the location scout.

See it. Enjoy it. But weep for the `lesser mortals' who fabricated it and mind the opportunities they missed.

!!!!! SPOILERS !!!!!!

Ron Howard's A BEAUTIFUL MIND shares something in common with SLEEPERS , PAPILLION and THE EXCORCISM OF EMILY ROSE in that it claims to be a true story but when you stop to examine the truth you realise that it's not really a true story at all . Perhaps I'm being unfair in comparing it to the aforementioned because in reality the story is similar to Oliver Stone's adaptation of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS in that the source material is based upon a real character but the film invents it's own version of reality

Professor John Nash was a mathematical genius but he was also a bi-sexual and a rabid anti- Semite , you wouldn't know this from seeing Akiva Goldsman screenplay where he's deeply in love with Alicia . I guess centering a story around a romantic subplot adds to the film's commercial appeal , never let truth get in the way of good box office . Unfortunately the producers decide to introduce an espionage subplot where it's revealed later on is part of a schizophrenic delusion suffered by Nash . This subplot is very insulting to anyone with any knowledge or experience of schizophrenia because the victim wouldn't suffer the type of delusions seen here . He would suffer from things like abstract signals where the television would try to contact him etc , a schizophrenic wouldn't find himself meeting mysterious men in black or finding himself with a room mate who is part of his imagination etc

There are somethings that make Howard's film worth seeing , things like Crowe's performance which might have won him an Oscar if it wasn't down to Academy politics . Connelly's award for best supporting actress was well deserved as was James Horner's nomination for score though perhaps Ed Harris might be upset about not being nominated for best supporting actor . I have to be honest and say that despite director Ron Howard and writer Akiva Goldsman making an interesting movie about mathematics neither of them deserved the Oscar that year . Best director and best adapted screenplay should have gone to FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING along with the Oscar for best picture

And remember if you want to know about the real John Nash please read Sylvia Nasar's biography and ignore this Hollywood version

... and in *no way* as clean, logical, and understandable as in pictured in that pathetic sum of tired Hollywood cliches.

I'm 27, and I've spent 16 years of my life struggling through delusional phobia and paranoid hallucinations. Like the main character in the film, I was successful mainly because of logic : because I kept thinking over and over to keep delusion away from reality, and to know what was really going on and what wasn't. In the end, I was really successful because of medication, by the way, but I certainly escaped madness because I knew before I took medication the difference between what was real and what wasn't.

So, I feel entitled to tell you that this movie is a total fraud. Not only does it cheat with the main character's story (who wasn't faithful to his wife, who was bisexual - something really important here), but mostly, it shows a comforting, tamed view of schizophrenia - which is entirely missing the point.

Schizophrenia is a mind structure, not a disease. A schizophrenic *isn't* a "normal man with a disease", it's someone who from early on views and feels things differently from most people : for him, things like time, space, and people's personalities aren't solid things. He feels it can be bent, it can change, it can mutate, and maybe even disappear. To cope with this, a schizophrenic has a rich, very imaginative inner world which "normal" people don't expect - but he's trapped in it because he can't relate with most people, and his world gets poorer and poorer until he finishes in a blank, delusive dead end.

This is very different to what's depicted in this ridiculous "cure", tear-jerking movie. It should be violently frightening. People other than the main character should appear strange, weird and absurd, like in Lynch's "Eraserhead", for example. There should be *really* impressive, weird, gross hallucinations, because that's what schizophrenia is all about. It's not about *details*.

I mean, watch "Naked Lunch", "Lost Highway", read P.K. Dick's "Martian Time-Split" or "Ubik", DO watch "The Cell", "Perfect Blue", "Dark City", or play "American McGee's Alice" on PC, and you may have a vague idea of what it's like. Don't watch the "feel good" movie of the month, with banal situations, cleaned characters and visuals, and stupid plot tricks. "The Cell" is the most accurate movie about a schizophrenic's mind, his visions and his inner consistency - it's violent, weird, confusing, and very, very scary.

Once again, Schizophrenia isn't about details, it's not a neat, tame trick played to you. It jumps in your face and won't let you go : walls fall apart, people turn into strange hostile creatures, you feel like you go backward in time, you're not sure you're who you think you are, everything feels... strange, unnatural. Believe me, this is much much more than what's depicted in this soap-like melodrama

Ron Howard has given us a film that's so different from the formula-oriented fare we receive from Hollywood, that this film, although studio born and bred, plays very much as an independent film.

The madness of John Nash is approached by the director, and the writer, Akiva Goldsman, with great honesty and restraint. The production has a look that tells us we are seeing the events in the life of this crazy mathematician as it really happened. Nothing seems to be out of place here with the right touch of atmospheric detail in showing the past, when Mr. Nash went from being an up and coming star in Princeton to his being selected for the Nobel prize in 1994, with enough time going into the schizophrenia that almost ruined his academic life, as well as his own marriage.

Russell Crowe plays this tormented soul with utter understanding of the man he is portraying. At no time does he strike a false note or gets too carried away with his own acting. That shows a firm hand by Mr. Howard, whose command seems to be behind every shot of this film.

Ed Harris is one of the best actors around and let no one tell you otherwise. He expresses so much with the simplest gestures any actor can make. His kind of acting is seamless from film to film. Here he gives a great and understated performance as the man in John Nash's nightmares and make-believe world.

The biggest surprise though, is Jennifer Connelly. She demonstrates here as well as in previous work, mainly her previous work in Requiem of a Dream, that she is in a league of her own. She's that rare breed of actresses that go from film to film acting in roles that she disappears into without any fanfare or hype.

Congratulations to Mr. Howard for this film.

Now this is the Russell Crowe I know and love. The Insider, L.A. Confidential... and now chalk up another calculating masterful performance.

A Beautiful Mind tells the autobiographical story of John Forbes Nash Jr. a distinguished professor from Princeton who went on to make some great theories and win the nobel prize. The centerpiece of the story is the fact that John Nash suffers from schizophrenia a debilitating condition for most people which leaves them helpless. Thus it is amazing that Nash has been able to achieve what he has. For the most part of the story his hallucinations turn out to institutionalize him at one point, when he thinks the Russians are trying to secretly send him coded messages through news publications.

First off the main performance by Crowe as Nash is amazing. This is the performance that I know he is capable of, complicated, passionate and serious, none of this gutteral one line BS that he uttered in Gladiator. Here we have a marvelous performance that Crowe spins as we watch Nash fall into despair, every twitch, eyes darting, and Nash's helplessness this is not an easy task for any actor. Nash is a recluse, almost an autistic savant, we see how he trys out his theories by writing on glass windows and stuffing himself in a corner of the library. He is seriously gifted, but a social misfit. Early on we hear how Nash describes how a grade school teacher mentioned that he was born with 2 heapings of brain but only 1/2 of heart.

Ron Howard's direction is great in exposing Nash's life. Probably the best scenes involve the use of how Nash comes up with his theories such as why the dynamics of a colleagues tie is so bad, or how a plan to get all of his college buddies laid leads to a theory that makes him famous.

Also what else can I say about Jeniffer Connely who plays his wife in the film. She is passionate and gives a full perfect 10 performance as well as the wife who is trying to survive with a husband she can't help. But the greatest achievement of this film is how it portrays mental illness from the perspective of the person suffering it.

Most films that deal with someone with a mental condition always place the focus on the people who are outside the person suffering, watching from a distance, trying to understand. Here we have a film that literaly puts us in the mind of the sufferer, as to what it is to live with such a debilitating illness. We get Nash's sense of accomplishment, but also his demons and paranoia. And probably the most important thing is that we understand that mental illness isn't something that gets cured, the people have to live with it, and it never goes away.

Also Crowe and Connely age in this film wonderfuly, so many films try to age actors/actresses in makeup and it doesn't work, but here it is done flawlessly..

Minor faults in the film deal with that some of the supporting characters are reduced to props and people we don't know, and at one point the film bogs slightly when Nash is trying to return to Princeton to study. But these points are minor since the performances of the main characters are so well done, and the stories focus is on them to begin with.

Crowe will probably get the best actor for this. Great film.

Rating 8 out of 10.

Crowe does a great job of playing mathematical whiz John Nash who always had a hard time dealing with people, partially because he just didn't get them, partially because social niceties were just beside the point to him. But Nash had big dreams due to his mathematical genius until schizophrenia stole those dreams. What is great about this film is that the viewer does not know that Nash's imaginary friends are imaginary until the film reveals that fact. What is real to Nash is real to the audience, up to a point.

His wife is not made out to be some kind of saint. She is frank after John is released from the hospital in that she mainly feels obligation. The anti psychotic drugs John is on make him unable to respond to her sexually, unable to carry on with his work in mathematics, unable to do much more than sit at home and stare. This is not what she signed up for, yet she stays.

And after several months of this, John makes a decision to stop taking the anti-psychotic drugs, try to deal with the illusions with will and with work, and try to scratch and claw his way back into mathematics. In the 1950s he is actually allowed back on campus at Princeton where he once was faculty. Today, insurance and legal issues would take that out of the hands of Princeton itself.

It's ultimately the story of how a man has to "cut one's coat according to one's cloth", as the old saying goes, of maybe not lowered expectations as much as slower expectations brought on by unforeseeable circumstances and obstacles.

A couple of minor things I really noticed were some touches Ron Howard put into the film. One is how as the years rolled on from the 1950s into the late 1960s young people were just ruder in general. Some of the students start mimicking Nash and his odd gait for laughs. So I guess a growing lack of empathy was part of social progress? The second thing is the reality that in the mid 20th century doctors really believed in insulin shock therapy, even though it is now known to be meaningless torture. What you are actually doing is taking somebody who is not diabetic and giving them insulin which induces seizures. It has been known to lead to coma and death in actual insulin dependent diabetics who end up with an overdose due to their body just absorbing insulin and excreting their own insulin slightly differently than is normal for them day to day.

Do realize this is not exactly the story of John Nash's life. He had a first marriage that he walked out on after his wife became pregnant. His second wife, Alicia, divorced him after six years of marriage in 1963. They did remarry in 2001. And Crowe definitely does not sound like he is from West Virginia, which was Nash's birthplace. But then all of these details would have been distracting and made the characters less sympathetic. After all, if I want to see the unvarnished truth about John Nash I should watch a PBS documentary, not a Hollywood movie!

But back to Crowe. Although every part of this film is well crafted, his performance is the heart of the film. I believe him when he is being a jerk, when he is a socially clueless romantic clumsily courting his wife, when he is afraid for his life, afraid for his sanity, afraid for the nothingness his life could become post diagnosis, and I believe his immersion into mathematics as he battles bravely to come back to the field that he loves.

I'd highly recommend this one as one of the more accessible 21st century Oscar winners. It is truly a classic.

If you're going to make a film for grown-ups, treat the audience like grown-ups. Instead, Opie extracts the aspects of John Nash's life and person he decided we grown-ups couldn't handle. Gone is Nash's racism, snobbery, arrest for indecent exposure, history of violent behavior, messy relationships with both sexes, the woman and son he abandoned, the voices that told him aliens were transmitting messages to him via the New York Times, the repeated stays at various loony bins, the nine months he spent wandering Europe trying to renounce his citizenship, the fact that Alicia divorced him in 1963, and that their son is schizophrenic. In short, gone is everything about Nash that made him such a enigmatic yet despicable human being to begin with.

The whitewashing doesn't end there. Parcher calling Joe McCarthy "an idiot", and proclaiming how the atomic bombs "evaporated 150,000 people" has no business being in the movie, as such "opinions" were totally foreign to most Americans, and certainly to those who worked for the government (even those who were figments of one's imagination).

Crowe as Rain Man and Connelly as the Long-Suffering Wife does not tell us what kept (and keeps) Nash and Alicia together. The cruel irony that a man who finessed a mathematical theory of rational behavior should succumb to insanity is totally lost on Opie and fellow hack Akiva Goldsman. Instead, they suggest that if you learn to "ignore" your imaginary friends, then you will be "cured" of whatever ails you. It's a false and outrageous notion.

"A Beautiful Mind" is a film about the mathematician John Nash. It is very cleverly written and directed, as about mid-way through the film you learn something very, very interesting about the film. I'd say more, but I don't want to ruin it--especially since the film makers did such a great job in presenting Nash's mental illness--something he's struggled with for many years.

I enjoyed "A Beautiful Mind". It was a lovely semi-fictional biography of the life of a brilliant mathematician. But, as I just said, it's SEMI-fictional--meaning a lot of the film just never occurred and the story of the man's life was often sanitized. The result is a very uplifting film...but one that is also a bit phony. And, as a retired history teacher, I hate this about the film. Additionally, I think the 2002 Oscars was a rather poor year, as although the film did win the Best Picture award, the competition wasn't particularly strong. As a result of all these factors, I think the film is overrated. Does that mean you should not watch it? Certainly not. Just understand that Hollywood often gets it wrong--and they did here. And, incidentally, another thing that is just plain wrong was Russell Crowe's accent. I don't know where he was supposed to be from, but it was no where near West Virginia.