Rating: 
Summary: "They are my past. Everyone is haunted by their past."
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Educational and highly entertaining.
Review: This is an important, enlightening and excellent film. It helped me to understand more about mental illnesses and what it is like for the person suffering the illness and indeed their family and friends. This is a very important message. As well as educating me this film entertained me immensely. I left the cinema in deep thought and have thought about it a lot since.
I sympathized with John Nash at times, wanted to shout at him at times, believed in him always. The story is told brilliantly and acted even better. Russell Crowe should have got an oscar for this film. I believe the fact that he had gotten one the year before prevented him from getting it for this film. Eventhough in my mind he more than deserved an oscar for his acting in this film. I could not understand how Denzel Washington (I do respect him and think he is a good actor) got the Best Actor Oscar for Training Day that year.
Rating: 
Summary: The Power of Love
Review: Kudos to Ron Howard! This is one of the best inspirational movies I have seen in a long time. Nash is more than just an eccentric, nutty Princeton mathematics professor. He has schizophrenia and struggles hard, but like many of us, to 'come to terms' with love, uncertainty, his thoughts, dreams & fantasies, and his perception of reality.
The movie also, in some ways, challenges stereotyped ideas about mental illness and our notion of absolute facts and 'truths'. Although the perseverative and psychotic symptoms of Nash's illness are very frustrating to watch, his character invokes enough sympathy to make the viewer almost wish his stories were true and that he's really not mentally ill.
Superb acting by Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris. Overall, this film creatively and intensely illustrates the power of love and the resiliency & triumph of the human spirit.
Rating: 
Summary: Hollywood's version is Unenligthening
Review: In the movie 'A Beautiful Mind' we are supposed to understand and sympathize with John Nash as he battles schizophrenia. But what astounds me about this movie is that it never explains schizophrenia. Most people still think it's that MULTIPLE PERSONALITY URBAN MYTH. They might think the imaginary roommate is personality #2.
I must also add that I read the book and the movie and book are extremely different. The movie is the HOLLYWOOD VERSION. Most of the stuff in the movie is fictional.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Review: It's hard to believe that this could happen to someone and that there are many people out there today with the same problem as Nash. It's quite scary if you think about it. A very good movie to see to help understand what someone can go through and try to overcome or at least manage.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Russell Crowe Performance
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" allows the audience to experience the mental hell that is schizophrenia. This is accomplished by the sure-handed direction of Ron Howard, the clever screenplay of Akiva Goldsman, and as mathemitician John Nash, the on-target performance of Russell Crowe. Mental illness is difficult to portray on film. Rarely is it done properly and usually it results in either over-the-top portrayals or in highly mannered performances. Crowe manages to portay it with the minimum of mannerisms. To Crowe's credit, Nash is not an entirely sympathetic character here. There are also clever devises employed by Howard and Goldsman to portray schizophrenia that I will not reveal here that are quite effective. "A Beautiful Mind" also has an excellent ensemble cast. Jennifer Connelly is compelling as Nash's sympathetic wife, Alicia. Paul Bettany and Ed Harris do good work as a pair of Nash's friends. Solid support is also supplied by Josh Lucas and Adam Goldberg as Nash's colleagues as does Christopher Plummer as Nash's psychiatrist.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant portrait of a beautiful mind and marriage
Review: This movie is much more effective than "Identity" in portraying the nightmare of schizophrenia.
It's a brilliant portrait of a devoted marriage and a genius convinced that he can help the good guys win the war by decoding secret messages in magazines. The image of Nash relentlessly circling words and phrases is both haunting, terrifying and heartbreaking. This movie inspires incredible compassion. The love of Alicia Nash (the luminous Jennifer Connelly, who has grown up so much since "Labyrinth," is unbelievably strong and yet fragile) makes us believe in the impossible.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Review: Truly awe-inspiring. A beautiful work piece that is never disappointing. Wonderful cinematography. Unlike this review, the movie flows gracefully without being choppy. There are so many more good things to be said about this movie. 2 more things: Russel Crow is such an amazing actor and seems to perfectly elude the character of John Nash. James Horner does some excellent work with the score, although it does seem to be a little repetative in some places.
Rating:
Summary: "A Ron Howard Classic"
Review:
Ron Howard and Russell Crowe have finally done it. This movie surprised me from beginning to end. I would have never expected Russell Crowe to give this kind of performance. I'm glad Ron Howard has finally shown his dark side. What I really noticed about this film, thinking about the effect of emotion on eye color, was that Russell's eye color changed from green to blue in some scenes.
Ron Howard has shown me that his directing is comparable to Frances Ford Coppola's and Martin Scorsese's. The two roles that Russell Crowe played in The Insider and A Beautiful Mind completely top his Oscar winning role in Gladiator. I loved Jennifer Connely's acting in this movie and the chemistry between Russell and Jennifer was electrifying. People who've said Russell is a one note actor will have a different opinion after seeing this movie.
I think Russell Crowe's acting in this film is comparable to my favorites, Marlon Brando and Robert Deniro. I believe there has never been a method actor who has demonstrated such gifted acting as Russell Crowe in this film "A Beautiful Mind."
Russell Crowe reminds me of Deniro a lot because of the intensity and sensitive emotion's they both show when acting. Russell gives us a different picture of mental illness when he portrays this geeky, shy, arrogant Dr. Nash. I think this movie is an original movie about an original man, the brilliant genius John Forbes Nash Jr. He is trying to find his original idea and on the way he falls in love with his future wife Alicia, becomes schizophrenic, and begins his long journey to the discovery of a lifetime and what Really matters in life.
Rating: 
Summary: A Not So Beautiful Mind
Review: A Beautiful Mind, nominated for eight Academy Awards, manages to twist enough feeling out of John Nash's incredible life story to redeem an at times ludicrous portrayal of schizophrenia. Russell Crowe, who endures the role with characteristic fervor of John Nash, was known to be enthralled with Nash to the point where he even attempted to emulate his flurry of hand gestures. The Nobel prize-winning mathematician developed a groundbreaking economic theory while at Princeton, to only be topped by his appearance on the cover of Forbes magazine and to become a professor at MIT, followed by his demise brought on by his schizophrenic delusions. These delusions were portrayed in the film by means of director Ron Howard, but predictably they go astray. Nash begins to believe this "altered" world is his reality which is populated by a maniacal Department of Defense agent, played by Ed Harris, an imagined college roommate who seems right out of Dead Poet's Society, and an orphaned girl. These characters are represented so favorably that the audience begins to wonder if schizophrenia is really as slick as it is depicted. Crowe's physical intensity drags the viewer along as he works admirably to carry the film. No doubt the story of Nash's amazing will to recover his life with out the aid of medication is a worthy one, which makes his eventual triumph heartening. Unfortunately, Howard's flashy style is unable to convey much of it.
There are several important elements in Nash's very influential life that have been overlooked. For one, his most prestigious theory which was the Nash Equilibrium, which is a way of describing how people caught in a strategic decision-making situation may respond based on their assumptions about each others' behavior. Not only is this pivotal element skipped, except for in the fine print of the epilogue, casual viewers may also come away thinking that he was some sort of cross between a paranoid pseudo-code breaker gone awry, and a crazy genius who devised a mathematical approach for picking up women and then forgot all about it. A little less Hollywood depiction would have been nice but the film is still deserving of the four Academy Awards achieved in 2001 for best picture, best director (Howard), best supporting actress (Connelly), and best adapted screenplay (Goldsman). Crowe's depiction of Nash earned him an Academy Award Nomination, which is generous in my opinion.
|
