director
Ron Howard
screenwriter
Akiva Goldsman
based on
the book by
Sylvia Nasar
producer
Brian Grazer
cinematographer
Roger Deakins
music
James Horner
editors
Daniel P. Hanley
Mike Hill
cast
Russell Crowe (John Nash)
Ed Harris (William Parcher)
Jennifer Connelly (Alicia Nash)
Paul Bettany (Charles)
Adam Goldberg (Sol)
Vivien Cardone (Marcee)
Judd Hirsch (Helinger)
Josh Lucas (Hansen)
Anthony Rapp (Bender)
Christopher Plummer (Dr. Rosen)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 134m
u.s.
release: 12/21/01
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other ron
howard films
reviewed on this website:
- apollo
13
- ed tv
- how the grinch stole christmas
- ransom
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A belated look at A Beautiful
Mind, which seems bound for Oscar glory. Of the mediocre
films that probably will be nominated, this is probably the most
deserving. I'm mixed in my feelings about it -- inspirational
tales about mental illness are a thorn in my side -- but I can't
deny how solidly it's crafted, how well-acted, and, wonder of
wonders, how intelligently written and directed. I'd not expected
much from director Ron Howard, on whom I'd long ago given up
(the last from him was his awful Grinch
redux), or from scripter Akiva Goldsman, who perpetrated the last two Batman
movies as well as Lost in
Space. But here, and perhaps here only, they've made
something that feels as though it matters.
Russell Crowe, of course, is
the movie's ringer. It might actually be harder to be a credible
gladiator than a believably agitated mathematician, but Crowe,
as the famously distressed real-life Nobel laureate Dr. John
Nash, creates volumes out of minuscule tics and mannerisms. Nash
is more comfortable with numbers than with people; Crowe, who
has never seemed the most gregarious of actors -- he's a brooder,
simmering in his own discontent -- finds the pathos in Nash's
alienation. When he speaks to his peers, which isn't often, Nash
usually takes the opportunity to point out how much more advanced
he is than anyone else. He's not the most likable hero
to occupy the center of a major Hollywood drama. Yet Crowe gets
us on Nash's side by physicalizing Nash's intellectual egotism;
he puts his body into each self-aggrandizing statement, making
both ego and geekiness attractive.
Nash is a spiritual brother
to the beleaguered hero of Darren Aronofsky's debut , another
egghead driven around the bend by the mysticism of pattern. While
his colleagues (including the always-entertaining Adam Goldberg
and the raffish Paul Bettany from last year's A
Knight's Tale) and his wife Alicia (Jennifer Connelly)
look on helplessly, Nash develops ever more obsessive and destructive
behaviors centered on top-secret work he's doing for the government
(Ed Harris, who could frighten a brick, is Nash's main liaison,
who slinks in and out of the movie, bringing shadows with him).
Soon enough, Nash cracks, and the remainder of the movie steps
in gently to treat his delusions. He has many relapses into madness,
but eventually learns to live with his phantasms, and (as in
real life) enjoys a late-life rally from both his peers and the
Nobel committee.
That the movie sometimes seems
to whisper that all a madman needs is the love of a good woman
will not endear it to those who know better; nor will it endear
it to non-fans of Jennifer Connelly, who remains -- though tenderly
directed by Howard -- a luminous blank. You begin to feel that
Nash gains the strength to fight his demons simply because his
partner is so hot; the movie might be called A Beautiful
Wife. In this and every movie, Connelly is presented as the
embodiment of male desire, and no more; when Alicia presents
Nash with a solution to an equation he's given to her class,
we no more believe it than we would if she handed him an operetta
she'd whipped up overnight. The only one allowed to have much
of a mind -- beautiful, ornery, cracked, or otherwise -- is Nash.
In the final half hour or so,
the film slides into love-will-conquer-all cheeseville, yet it's
still mounted with such tact and professionalism that, yes, I
did choke up a little at Nash's Nobel acceptance speech,
wherein he seems to share Sean Penn's philosophy in I Am Sam
that love is all you need. If the movie had followed Sylvia Nasar's
detailed biography more closely -- we hear nothing of Nash's
bisexuality, though here and there it's implied -- it might've
been a grittier story, instead of the well-mounted if ultimately
sappy Hollywood production it is. Put it this way: given its
basic mainstream parameters, A Beautiful Mind couldn't
have been much better than it is (at times, quite good), but
it could've been a lot worse.
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