Moving yes....

Rating: Null/10 (5 April 2002)

A Beautiful Mind is to all extents an excellent piece of cinema.
However it is not the sort of film that deserves 4 Academy Awards, in particular for Achievement in Direction and Best Film.
It is my view that the one nomination that the film truly deserved to win for was Best Actor, although Denzel Washington was excellent in Training Day, it was not a role worthy of the award. He has been in the past far more deserving. However that is besides the point I am glad he eventually won. However I believe the events surrounding Russell Crowe is the main reason that he failed to take the award for a second year on the trot, he ladies and gentleman is once again the jewel of the film!
Ron Howard directed admirably, but that again as many who have seen A Beautiful Mind will agree it is a film that could have been directed by a great number of people and is by no means the supremely challenging directing task that Lord of the Rings posed.
By comparison Lord of the Rings is a movie of exquisite quality and the combined efforts of so many, led obviously very ably from the front, by Peter Jackson is far more deserving of an award titled 'Best achievement in Direction'. Frankly LOTR was the most intelligently directed film I have ever, repeat ever seen, and to see it lose its directing Oscar to a film, which though well done was not overtly challenging is in my mind daylight robbery.
A Beautiful Mind's OST written by John Horner is both beautiful, no pun intended, and fairly original. It has all the hallmarks of Horner, but it fits aptly with the emotional wranglings of the film.
In conclusion I would suggest that although an excellent film, it is one which is over-rated in the extreme. See it, rent it I assure you that you will like it, but I feel its success with Awards is unfair at best. The Academy has got to review the titles for their awards, because I am sorry but if they think that the adaption of Sylvia Nasar's book by Akiva Goldsman is an achievement in even the same realm as the adaptation of the undisputed first-instalment of the greatest work of fantasy ever and one of the biggest selling works of fiction of the last century, then they are simply misguided.
I rest my case!
A Beautiful Mind is great, I assure it will move you, but will you walk away chanting, "best film of the year".....?
I think you Will agree No!