Very good movie, but a little overhyped... First let me say that "A Beautiful Mind" is a very good movie. It's well made, well acted, and a very thoughtful picture. The biggest problem with it is that it's a shoe-in for Academy Awards like "Best Actor," "Best Director," and "Best Picture." Director Ron Howard definitely deserves the Best Director award. This may be his best directing job yet. But let's look at the others. I really think any respectable actor besides Russell Crowe could've gotten the Best Actor award. That part could've been played by anybody and the award would've been given to him. The film was also a shoe-in for Best Picture simply because it was a touching life story about a man with a mental disease. But putting all these expectations aside, "A Beautiful Mind" is still a very good movie, even when it's obviously trying to jerk a few tears. It tells the story of John Nash, a gifted mathematician who finds out he has schizophrennia. We meet John when he's a young hotshot in college and follow his life up until 1994 when he recieves the Nobel prize. I wouldn't take everything in this movie as law. There are many inaccuracies and omissions to Nash's life in the film. But for what it's worth it is a well-made film and will delight those who weep easily in movies. Don't take my criticisms on this film too seriously. I did like this movie a lot. However, there are other similar films that didn't get awards that I would recommend instead of this.
A potentially beautiful film turned ugly in its deceit. Sorry, but while great film has the responsibility for excellence in script, direction, acting and cinematography, when it lies by selective ommissions from truth, it is propoganda, not art. Biographer SYLVIA NASAR has defended screenwriter AKIVA GOLDSMAN's decision to omit certain details about mathematician JOHNFORBES NASH from his film A BEAUTIFUL MIND. Fans of the GOLDEN GLOBE-winning writer's biography about the former schizophrenic have criticized both Goldsman and the movie's director RON HOWARD for ignoring significant aspects of Nash's life - including his homosexual tendencies, that he fathered an illegitimate child and that he and his wife ALICIA divorced shortly after his schizophrenia was diagnosed. In the film, JENNIFER CONNELLY, who plays Alicia, stands by her troubled husband's side throughout his mental problems, and Nash, played by RUSSELL CROWE, is portrayed as an upstanding and resolutely heterosexual man. Sorry folks, but without truth there's no beauty when beauty proports to be truth and not fantasy. ."They are my past. Everyone is haunted by their past." Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" is a tragic and inspiring masterwork that showcases one of the most impressive acting performances in recent memory. If there were still any lingering doubts as to the extent of Russell Crowe's acting prowess, this film dashed them all.
John Nash (Crowe) is a brilliant mathematician who makes an amazing breakthrough in his field while a student at Princeton. After graduating, he teaches at M.I.T. while working for the federal government as a code-breaker. He begins a relationship with a graduate student (Jennifer Connelly) and soon they are married and settle into a quiet domestic life. However, Nash soon starts to see patterns and associations of information everywhere and it is soon discovered that he is suffering from schizophrenia. Serious questions as to his perceptions of the real world, both in the past and in the present, must now be confronted.
Virtually all aspects of "A Beautiful Mind" work beautifully. Howard's confident direction and the strong lead performances by Crowe and Connelly is the glue that holds the entire production together. However, the important contributions made by supporting actors Paul Bettany, Ed Harris, and Christopher Plummer, composer James Horner, and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman should not be underestimated and should also be acknowledged. Furthermore, "A Beautiful Mind" deserves credit for not sentimentalizing Nash's struggle against mental illness. The darker aspects of his tortuous road to recovery are not avoided and are unflinchingly presented warts and all. It is a credit to Crowe's talent that we come to know John Nash so well and come to care so much for him. Nash's life is an amazing story and "A Beautiful Mind" is an amazing recounting of it.
