I'm a bit disappointed

Rating: Null/10 (16 February 2002)

Perhaps the Oscar hype made me expect something that would knock my socks off, but I thought I should have at least needed to take my handkerchief out. I didn't feel that the schizophrenia was presented with enough background. Usually, hallucinations grow out of something in the person's life, but we don't learn anything about Nash's life. He is just dropped into Princeton without any history (or family), so it's a bit hard to care deeply about his descent into madness. The love story was also a bit thin; it was not clear what made Nash endearing that someone would sacrifice so much for him. Then there's the problem with mathematics. All of it is presented as extremely important to geniuses, but it can't be explained to us, so all we get is a lot of blackboards and windows coated with symbols we must assume mean something. At least with psychotic pianists, we can understand why the music is important and the love of their life. But math? Once the story turns into an after-school special about sticking by crazy people because they are gifted and deserve our love, I felt that the movie had become an excellent made-for-TV product, but an Oscar film? I guess this was one of the worst years for movies in history, and the hype about this film is the proof; pardon the mathematical allusion.