Rating: 
Summary: a masterpiece
Review: I am amazed by the carping critics who deride the skill of Howard, Crowe,Connelly, et al, in conveying a powerful, moving story of the redemptive power of human love and the strength of human character to overcome one's own demons,real or imagined. To have slavishly followed Nash's biography would have detracted and distracted from the focus and eloquence of this film. Watching these talented actors perform with a wonderful script under the skillful direction of Ron Howard is a rare treat. Crowe's performances through Insider, Gladiator and now Beautiful Mind confirm that he is a true acting genius. This film will be recognized over time as a masterpiece and will never become dated or maudlin.The viewers should immerse themselves in the beauty and stength of this film,and the important issues presented, and not worry if every character flaw or problem in Nash's life is explored. For that, the book serves the purpose. Meanwhile, we should appreciate this gem.
Rating: 
Summary: A Tired Parade of Cliches
Review: You've already seen this movie. You don't need to see it again. A Beautiful Mind never once rises above the merely serviceable. It never rises above the level of the usual fairly competently made TV movie. Emotional payoffs are telegraphed a full two hours in advance. The music swells dramatically to tell you to start crying. It's almost like a Spielberg film, except that Ron Howard doesn't have Spielberg's considerable talents. Russell Crowe does a fairly good job, but all too often is content just to bring out a series of ticks and grins and mumbles. He basically gets by on his considerable charisma and charm. If the film is at all watchable, it is due to him. Ed Harris does next to nothing, and basically makes the easiest paycheck of his entire career. There is really no reason to see this film. There are better motion pictures out there. You'll easily find one. Just look.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Mind
Review: This was a most enjoyable movie. It not only endorsed a deep love and long and faithful marriage in spite of enormous difficulties, but gave you a small understanding of the suffering that Scitzophrenics go through. It was a love story on the same scale as "Titanic". I enjoyed the portrayals of the characters. They were very believable. It kept my attention to the end. The twists and turns had you wondering what was real and what was not. It was as hard for the audience as the patient. the added pleasure was that it didn't have explosions, car chases, and bad language. I don't usually watch a movie a second time, but this one I would add to that short list. I learned something. I learned a new tollerence and a new view of this desease. I felt that it made me a better person just for the watching. It was an added bonus that the story was true. I could have taken my mother-in-law to this movie. It told an excellent story without all the gimicks to attract the public. Well done. I expect the Oscars to recognize this film.
Rating: 
Summary: A Little Hard to Watch, but Worth Your Time
Review: I'm not going to say that A Beautiful Mind is one of the best movies I have ever seen - because it's not. My tastes run toward quirky films by Joel and Ethan Coen (see my other reviews). But if you're considering seeing this movie, I'm here to tell you that it's not a waste of a movie ticket. Even at evening prices. A Beautiful Mind is a very well-done (and mostly true) biopic of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician with a penchant for cracking complicated codes. An economic theory he developed while in graduate school earned him a large amount of notoriety - and a job teaching at MIT. Unfortunately, as his high-prestige job progresses, John spirals into a vicious case of schizophrenia with delusions, making it hard for his wife (Jennifer Connelly) and son to live with him. Russell Crowe, who up until this point I'd written off as a pretty boy, does some really fine acting in this movie. Character actress Jennifer Connelly, who hasn't had a lead role in a major motion picture for some years, also does well as John's long-suffering former student and wife. Ed Harris, who's good in just about anything he does, also has a secondary role. The movie moves a little slow at first, outlining John's early days as a slightly odd pure mathematics student, but gets exciting soon after that. Don't give up on it! The scenes where John's mental illness sends him out of control were a little difficult for me to watch (insulin shock therapy, being chained to the bed, etc.). However, they are an essential part of the movie and I'm glad they were left in. The movie is fairly suitable for family viewing, with light to moderate cursing and a few risque situations thrown in (Crowe's character tends to be very blunt about his desires for Connelly, simply because he doesn't know how to be any other way). Overall, one of the best big-budget movies this year. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: I loved every minute of this film
Review: I'll admit, going into this film I had great dislike for Russel Crowe and I only wanted to see Jennifer Connelly (not to gawk a her, give her a chance as an actress too!). After seeing Crowe in this role, I gained a lot of respect for him. He is a great actor who has a good eye for great roles. He deserves all of the acclaim he gets.
This movie kept me on the edge of my seat. You do not know who to believe. But I believe that the main thing carrying the movie was the love story. It was simply beautiful. Ron Howard got a lot of complaints because he didn't stay true to John Nash's real life, but it's a movie! It has to be entertaining! Even though the story of John and Alicia's marriage wasnot completely true to life, it was still the best part of the movie.
All of the performances were excelent. Of course Russel Crowe, but Ed Haris and Jennifer Connelly were also excelent. So was the guy that played Nashes roommate. I'm sorry I don't know his name. They all kind of have been overshadowed by Crowe's Performance. Let's all take a moment to respect them............
This film really captures the lives of people and the struggles they go through. Everything seems very real. I feel like I could know these people. Everything was put together so well in this movie, it is a masterpiece. And it's even better the second time.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Movie
Review: My husband and I see a lot of movies,
and we have very divergent tastes, but
after seeing this film for the first
time we were blown away and agreed that
it was the best film either of us had
ever seen. Russell Crowe performance
was brilliant, the story was powerful,
human, absorbing, astounding and as big
as the starry night sky Crowe's character
reveals to Jennifer Connelly's.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Movie on the Mystery of the Mind
Review: 'A Beautiful Mind' directed by Ron Howard, acted out by Russell Crowe, Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly tries to portray the incredible life story of John Nash an exceptionally gifted Mathematician haunted by schizophrenic delusions. The movie is based on the life of the Nobel Prize winner, a biography of whom was written by Sylvia Nasar, named 'Beautiful Mind'. Russell Crowe's gripping portrayal of the young socially awkward Princeton student, the husband and parent tortured by delusions and the magnanimous and mature Nobel Prize winner, is worthy of commendation. He is well supported by the loving wife (Jennifer Connelly) and the Department of Defense Agent (Ed Harris) The movie begins as Nash arrives at Princeton University where his eccentricities are revealed among the students and the staff alike. Here he develops a ground breaking economic theory, which gives him enough popularity to be on the front cover of Forbes magazine and to win an MIT professorship. But later his schizophrenic delusions would cause his dismissal. In the meantime, he meets Alicia a diligent student of his, whom he eventually marries. She proves to be a devoted and caring wife. The delusory world of Nash is populated by a 'prodigal room mate' with a fascination for D H Lawrence, an orphaned little girl and the Department of Defense Agent who is desperately after Nash in his work against the Russians. A psychiatrist enters the scene to tell the audience that these were mere creations of Nash's mind. The ordeal of psychiatric treatment and medications that follow, leaves him an emotional wreck. He now decides to recover his life without the aid of any medication. With the help of a friend he finds his way back to Princeton where he gradually wins the acclaim of the students and the esteem of the professors. Finally in 1994 he accepts in Stockholm the Nobel Prize for his economic theory, an achievement of his distant youth. Ron Howard deserves credit for the well-crafted and superbly presented story of a genius' struggles with schizophrenia. But as many critics have pointed out he risks idealizing the Nobel Prize winner by ignoring some pertinent aspects of his life, like his homosexual encounters, his illegitimate child, his arrest for indecent exposure, his divorce and remarriage, and his decision to renounce American citizenship. The movie makes the profound statement that the nature of the mind is not fully comprehensible. It also draws attention to the plight of those who suffer from mental illness in the society and the need for greater understanding and empathy. The film has a gripping effect on the average moviegoer.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable Drama
Review: I walked out of the theater today in tears! The cast, the sets, the perfection of everything! Growing up with Ron Howard as "Opie" gives me satisfaction that there will be more of these to come! Great cast, great performance. A must to see! I will most definatly purchase the video! Two thumbs up!
Rating: 
Summary: Artificiality disguised as profundity
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" has received so many awards and great reviews that I held
out what I thought was a reasonable possibility that this was a film worth
seeing -- especially since most reviews have suggested it is Opie's best
work since "Apollo 13." If I sound snide saying Opie, I have no regrets because this is a movie made
by that little boy who sees the world only in simple television terms. ABM,
which is so God awful much of the way through it's almost staggering, has
put me in an absolute rage -- not only because of IT but because I simply
can't come to grips that we now exist in a culture that embraces this goopy
treacle as serious art. The Directors Guild of America, in a bit of a
surprise, nominated only one American director for its annual award this
year and left out Robert Altman ("Gosford Park") and David Lynch
("Mulholland Drove") and Todd Fields ("In the Bedroom") and Terry Zwigoff
(Ghost World"). But Ron Howard was the man. I want to run someplace -- maybe
back to the 70s -- but I don't know how to get there. From what I understand, the book about John Nash's life on which this
picture is based, is pretty interesting and well-written. Howard and
screenwriter Akiva Goldsmith (who miraculously won a Golden Globe ) have
exorcised every complexity and dark reality from the written work; no longer
does Nash have a penchant for same-sex relationships, and no longer does
Nash's illness make him see aliens or have other fantasies that would have
blown the reality of his "illness'' right out of the water. That's right, Howard and company use Nash's illness to manipulate the
audience in one of the more hollow and insulting screen gimmicks I've ever
seen. (SPOILER FOLLOWS if you're planning to see ABM): For the first third of the movie (or was it a third of a day), Nash's
hallucinations are played straight so we don't realize some of the regular
characters in the film are figments of his diseased mind. That may have
worked well in "The Matrix" if you like that sort of thing, but it's simply
preposterous and offensive here. After seeing "Vanilla Sky,'' which I
intensely disliked, I realized we now have a new film genre on our hands
called MINDBENT. The worst uses of the genre spend time pulling the ground
out from under the audience in the name of serious art; in reality, the
gimmick often is used to disguise the complete Enron-like bankruptcy of any
serious ideas or artistic vision. The worst of the television-actors-turned-directors share a simple-minded,
reductive way of handling any kind of complex or dark material. In Penny
Marshall's "A League of Their Own," I wince at the scene where the Geena
Davis character is in the locker room, fearing that her husband will be
injured or killed in the War. In comes a war flunky to hand over a note to
some unlucky woman-soon-to-be-widow about the death of her husband.
Marshall's only way of portraying that moment is to artificially build
suspense by playing with the audience's expectations: the moment comes down
to whether it is Davis's husband who will soon be 10-feet under. In other
words, the only thing on Marshall's mind is jolting the audience -- making
them sweat in the name of dramatic impact. It doesn't matter that SOME woman
will feel unimaginable grief in a few minutes: Just as long as it isn't our
star. The scene doesn't have anything to say about the war or death in the
military. It's there to spice up the movie, to jack up the drama, without
any organic connection to anything real. It's a television moment of the
worst kind. Which leads me back to ABM. Not only is the gimmick used for the first third
of the film and not very well, may I add, but there's a quieter moment at
the end of the film that is a window to the movie's sorry soul. Nash is
older now and on his way to recovery. He hangs out at the Princeton Library
doing his work quietly, trying to ignore the regular figments of his
imagination that intrude on his mind from time to time. In comes a student
asking about Nash and whether he's the same Nash who did such great work a
million years ago, etc. etc. No one else is in the library, of course, so
that the scene can play as the most demeaning kind of contrivance. The movie
is playing with us the same way Marshall played with us in "A League of
Their Own"; the way it's filmed is intended to make us wonder whether this
character is another figment of Nash's imagination. And, of course, we get
the predictable payoff a moment later when his teary-eyed wife comes to the
library and sees him working productively with the kid and other kids at a
desk. It's real by God -- it's real! Start the Rocky music or in this case,
the overbearing, loud, unwelcome James Horner "Field of Dreams"-like score. Howard here has no interest in rendering Nash's life or expressing an
organic vision about mental illness or doing anything other than taking
audiences on an artificial ride and then trying to tear emotions from their
hearts. It's so stiflingly hollow that the first impulse is to scream from
your seat. Russell Crowe can be a great actor, and there's all kinds of talk about him
winning a consecutive Oscar this year. He's given nothing to play here
really, and this is not close to one of his best performances. (Don't even
mention it in the same breath with the work he did in "The Insider.") He's
all tics and lopsided walks and he gets to age 50 or so years so he meets
Oscar's stringent requirements in every way. He has a sort of Gumpian and
Rain Man innocence even when he's "playing" arrogant and nasty at the
beginning of the film. You just can't help but sort of love him even when
he's an ass. At all times, Howard and Crowe make sure his darkest traits
never play too dark; he's artificial and a television conception from the
moment we meet him. Nash's courtship with his future wife is poorly written
and often gooey so there is little chemistry that ever ensues in the early
scenes of them getting to know each other. Which makes Jennifer Connelly's performance even more remarkable. Somehow,
somewhere along the way, Connelly makes the pain of dealing with a
non-functional husband feel real and significant. Against all odds, against
a screenplay that doesn't give her almost anything at all, against a
director whose every impulse is toward safety and artificiality, Connelly
breaks through in terrific ways. She's the best thing about the movie --
hands down -- and a star in the making. Given the crap she must wade
through, the performance is nothing short of amazing. But Howard and company make sure the film has everything going against it
for anyone with taste. Predictably, the movie ends with Nash winning the
Nobel Prize and delivering a TV-movie-of-the-week speech intended to pull
at the heartstrings. It violates every "reality" we have come to know about
the character. That's how bad TV-actors-turned-directors operate: At a
climatic scene, they let their heroes say or do anything to get an unsubtle
audience effect even if it cuts completely against the character we've --
ahem -- come to know. I've gone on long enough. (I know, too long). Maybe I'm the one who has the
diseased mind. But at the risk of sounding arrogant and elitist, I am
dumbfounded by the idea that people believe this pre-fabricated Oscar junk
is a great movie or anything remotely better than what can be found on bad
cable television day in and day out. That there is a school of thought out
there (and a lot of award hardware) indicating this is cinema to be taken
seriously leaves me very dejected to say the least. Mike Isaacs
Rating:
Summary: A Haunting Struggle With Mental Illness.
Review: John Forbes Nash is a brilliant mathematician. He won The Nobel Prize in 1994. And he also suffers from Schizophrenia. A Beautiful Mind tells his story, from College to the present. I have never seen Mental Illness so realistically depicted in any medium, be it film or prose. I won't say anything about the film itself; there are some AMAZING surprises along the way, and anything I might say would only ruin them. I'll just praise Director Ron Howard, Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, and stars Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, & Ed Harris. They are all outstanding, with Crowe in particular being Oscar-worthy for his portrayal of the tortured Nash. Upon leaving the Theater, I was thinking that A Beautiful Mind was one of the best pictures that I have ever seen. Very Impressive, indeed!
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