Rating: Summary: Beautiful Mind-Beautiful Movie Review: A beautiful movie. This movie far exceeded my expectations. The writers, director and producer deserve credit for developing such meaningful characters. The outstanding features of the story were the fidelity and love shown by the characters toward John. His wife did not seek comfort in the arms of someone else but stood by John and loved him through his awful problems. This is so unlike Hollywood. Most writers would have spiced it up with some seduction, etc. but reality is so much more appealing. I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates substantial films rather than the traditional superficial sex/shoot-em-up Hollywood fare.
Rating: Summary: Good, but... Review: Interesting story, whether accurate or not. Excellent acting by Crowe, Connelly and, as always, Ed Harris. Way too long, the story could have been adequately & eloquently told in under 2 hours. And the music! The entire viewing experience would have been more captivating and less maudlin with an occasional change in tempo. I found myself thinking too often "I got the point half an hour ago, move on." Too bad. I really like Ron Howard movies, appreciate a good story, and such outstanding acting is not to be overlooked or undermined. My recommendation is to make sure you are in a very patient frame of mind when you head out the door to see this one. You will be glad you didn't waste your movie money on a mindless action film or one of the ever-prevalent animated adventures, but this movie may put you in the mood to see another movie! Sorry, Opie.
Rating: Summary: Put this on your must see list. Review: "Beautiful Mind" has a wonderful(true) story with super acting. Crowe will get an Academy Award for it and it will be well earned. Watching this movie is a good lesson on what this type of mental illness is all about and how people with this disease suffer. It is also a love story and a great advertisment for enduring marriage through thick and thin. If you don't catch this at the theatre, be sure and check it out on DVD or video.
Rating: Summary: I don't get it..... Review: I can't for the life of me understand why some people didn't like it. I just don't understand it. This movie is based LOOSELY on John Nash's life. For me, this movie is about how schizophrenia affects a person's life and in the case of the John and Alicia Nash, how a love can overcome it. True, they did divorce, but let's not forget, they REMARRIED!! It's not like she abandoned him, cause she didn't. The moviemakers wanted to show how strong Alicia Nash is. Also, they were on the set of the movie, too!! Maybe they didn't want that other part of his life to be in the movie. And maybe they didn't want the movie to be about that. Like Crowe says, "it's entertainment at the end of the day". I LOVE this movie and Crowe's performance. He deserves the Oscar more than anyone else. He already won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA (England's equivalent to Oscar)...if that doesn't say something about a performance, I don't what will. This is his 3rd consective nomination and that says alot. For those who loved the movie, Congratulations on having good taste and knowing good cinema when you see it!!! For those that DIDN'T like it..open your mind and your heart a little bit more. I'm not forcing you to like the movie, but "to each his own" I guess...
Rating: Summary: Excellent: don't read any reviews till you see it though. Review: Doing a review of a film like A BEAUTIFUL MIND is taxing because much of its impact comes from plot twist that, unless you know the life of John Nash (which I did not), will radically reorient your view of Nash. I encourage you to do two things. First, see this very powerful film. Next, don't read any reviews until after you see the movie. Most have a (necessary) spoiler which drastically weakens first viewing. The film opens with John Nash just attending Princeton in the late 1940s. He is a mathematician looking for that one "original idea," which will distinguish him from his fellow students. Nash finds his idea when a group of prospective dates arrive at a local pub. His thesis radically departs from one hundred years of economic theory. The film deals with this quickly and efficiently, because (and lets be honest here) we didn't come for lessons in economic theory. After he writes his thesis, his professor thinks its brilliant and then the film jumps five years into the future. John Nash has begun working at an institution, where he is contacted by the government to help them fight Communism. John Nash meets his wife Alicia (Jennifer Connelly). There is a very poignant moment in the movie where they are outside the governor's mansion on the terrace when John and her are looking into the sky. Nash tells her to pick any shape at all in the sky and he will find it. She finds this delightfully romantic. It's not so romantic, however, when she later discovers her husband has schizophrenia his tendency of discovering patterns has led him into believing he is doing classified government work. The viewer is unsure whether Nash having schizophrenia is a conspiracy against him or the actual truth. Part of this film's brilliance is putting the audience in Nash's position. Being unsure yourself whether he is having disillusions or not makes you very sympathetic toward Nash. Living in a time of conspiracy theory and government cover-ups, I kept siding with Nash. You can feel his terror as his world comes crumbling down as he discovers whole areas of his life as not being dead or gone forever, as Nash's psychologist Dr. Rosen says, but never existing in the first place. If you are familiar with Nash's life or you have been reading reviews of the movie and know Nash is mentally ill, this very powerful part loses most of its impact. A BEAUTIFUL MIND is a better film not for Nash aficionados (if there is such a thing) but for those who nothing about him. His wife helps him through this very tough time in his life. This illness produces a great amount of stress on his marriage. The love and support of his wife is what gets him through his illness, and without her Nash would have spiraled out of control. While a beautiful mind is a true blessing, Nash learns that his smarts won't solve this problem. It's the connection with his wife, the power of the human heart that will keep his life balanced and ordered. A BEAUTIFUL MIND is a testament to the support and love of two people for one another. "Chick flicks" have nothing on the powerful statement A BEAUTIFUL MIND makes about love and commitment.
Rating: Summary: Amazing! Review: I cannot remember being so impressed with a movie. Russell Crowe was outstanding and although I did not know the story of John Nash I shall never forget it now I have seen the film. Russell Crowe's performance was totally believable and shocking, yet one can feel only sympathy, pride and joy for John Nash as a man. The whole production was unique. All Oscars well deserved.
Rating: Summary: It's not what you expect... Review: My sister had to drag me to watch this film. And in the end it was what neither of us expected - plotwise. Turns out I enjoyed the film more than she did. We had no idea who John Nash was. My sister was expecting a romance movie. I was expecting a documentary of his life. In some ways, it's both. In other ways, it's neither. There indeed is romance and love involved in this story between John and his wife Alicia. And it also does document the earlier days of John's life spent in academia (Princeton) which led to his groundbreaking discovery of an economic theory. In my opinion, Russell Crowe does a wonderful job of portraying the often quirky, always socially inept John Nash. When I later discover he has schizophrenia, I thought to myself "so that's what schizophrenia looks like". I immediately found sympathy for him, and realized that he really doesn't mean to be a bad person. It really is a condition that can happen to anybody. The special and interesting thing about John Nash is that he is able to rationalize this disorder and compartmentalize it in his mind so that he can continue living his life. What a truly beautiful mind he has! Jennifer Connelly plays Alicia in this movie. She's introduced to us as a drop-dead gorgeous student of John that has a feisty side to her. We get a feeling early on that she finds something unique and attractive about John, and tries to enculturate him into society. She makes him fall in love with her. And so they get married. That's when John's paranoid episodes get more intense and he is institutionalized for a while. Yet through it all, Alicia is always patient, supportive, understanding and faithful. She knew they could overcome this. And she was right. This film to me is inspirational on many levels. It's about an underdog who works hard to achieve the accomplishment of a lifetime. It's about a man's battle with paranoid schizophrenia, and his subsequent triumph over it. It's about the love of one woman for her husband through thick or thin. You must watch this film to understand. It wasn't what I expected... it was much much more.
Rating: Summary: Wonderful movie, but even BETTER book Review: First off, I have to admit I loved the movie and credit it with getting me to read this book. After reading this book, however, I realized that the movie (as absorbing as it was) left out so many important details about John Nash's early and later years, details which make all the difference in understanding the richness and complexity of his life....his childhood as an eccentric, if gifted, child, his connection to two different women (and the two children he had) and the oddness of those relationships. The author also reveals that one of Nash's children suffers from acute schizophrenia and writes about the similarities and differences between his illness and that of his father. If you want to go beyond just the brief intro to Nash's life that the movie portrayed, be sure to get a copy of this one.
Rating: Summary: Best film of 2001--period Review: I loved this movie. I'm serious, I thought it was one of the best films ever made. I loved the script, the acting, the dialogue, the score, the cinematography, the film is going to take home a slew of Oscars. Russell Crowe is John Forbes Nash jr, the famous math wiz who would write on the walls. He marries Alicia Nash, played by Jennifer Connelly, in a sure Oscar winning performance. There are so many good twists and turns, and you never see the big twist ahead of you. It's a real shocker. I'm definently pre ordering this DVD, and I'm rooting for this at the Oscars. It's one of my favorite films.
Rating: Summary: A Beautiful Movie! Review: I have a new addition to my personal top-ten list of movie greats! The suprizes and supense in this movie will have you on the edge of your seat and you'll spend much of the movie thinking that everyone is crazy except Russel Crowe! It's great!
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