Yep, intelligence is a terrible thing to waste...

Rating: 6/10 (17 March 2002)

'Saccharine' is one of those adjectives that moviegoers use and abuse. I don't consider myself one that abuses it: although I do get irritated when watching phony sentimentality, I do not mind movies that aim for the heart. Honestly, I don't even mind movies that get a little manipulative in this respect, unless of course the manipulation is downright insulting (and sadly, it is not that rare).
Now, are you a fan of plot twists? Because I am going to start with one in this review already: forget about the word 'saccharine', because A Beautiful Mind, despite what a few people said, did manage not to insult the viewer's intelligence by inserting too many syrupy scenes. The bad news is, however, that this has brought a denouement about Howard's real capabilities. Quite frankly, he has not matured into the awesome director they want us to see.
What's that? You're saying that the aforementioned plot twist was not very good? Well, you will not find much better in the film.
A Beautiful Mind tells the fictionalized story of John Nash (Russell Crowe), Noble prize winner who struggled for most of his life with schizophrenia. In the beginning of the film, we meet Nash as a student in Princeton. He is a strange individual, apparently shy and volatile; he often speaks his mind out loud and ends up being ridiculed by students with better social skills. Apparently, Nash is also experiencing troubles with his studies, but he is constantly looking for a revolutionary idea that would permit him to be remembered as an innovator and good mathematician. One day, in a bar where he is putting into mathematics a method to pick up girls, he comes up with a theory so revolutionary that, in the future, the world of economics and beyond will literally be changed by it.
Years later, following the success of his theory, Nash is working for a government agency and is a professor at the Massachuttes Institute of Technology; here, he meets Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) and falls in love with her. However, for Nash life is not as easy as it sounds, as soon he -- and the viewers -- will get to learn that part of his world is not quite what he thinks. He is suffering from schizophrenia, and with the progressive degeneration of it both his love life and his work as a mathematician are at risk of being destroyed forever. Will love and genius triumph over tragedy?
OK, this last question sounds a little overdone and goofy, but it is not so dissimilar from level of depth that A Beautiful Mind maintains through the film. The problem with A Beautiful Mind is not so much that the film takes liberties with John Nash's story, but rather that these liberties are the result of poor presentation and weak ideas.
I have never read in its entirety the book that tells the real (not fictionalized) story of John Nash, but I am aware that the nature of some of his hallucinations is not played the way it is played in the film; the clear boundaries between reality and delusions are suppressed in the film to surprise the viewer with a plot twist. Fine, I am a fan of plot twists when they add something in terms of significance, but here it is clearly done only for entertainment value. The same can be said about many events in Nash's real life that in the movie are skipped, distorted or changed. It is clear that the aim of A Beautiful Mind is not to change a true story in order to explore the mind of a troubled genius, but rather to present a product as clean and accessible to the public as possible. And while this has apparently guaranteed big cash and the Academy consideration, it didn't fool me. You see, Howard's Cocoon did not have ambitions to be much more than a fairy tale, and on that level it was perfectly enjoyable. A Beautiful Mind is not a fairy tale, and I think we should expect a little more than a story where everything is on the surface.
I am not condemning the fact that A Beautiful Mind took a true story and fictionalized it, but rather the fact that it did not do so to add levels of depth to it; it did so to make it the most commercially palatable. Symbolism, psychical discourses, and mathematics are pretty much completely absent, and the glimpses of Nash's genius are put on screen through 'romanticized', computer-generated visual effects; anything that could have possibly disturbed the public has been removed. I am quite positive that even a documentary-like approach to John Nash's story would have given more insight about the human mind and more though-provoking material. A Beautiful Mind is not a terrible motion picture, it is a terribly average motion picture, one that would have satisfied me if it was a made-for-TV production.
The acting is satisfying. Crowe, who inexplicably won last year for his mediocre portrayal of Maximus in Gladiator, is up for another Oscar this year. His work here is certainly good, but not great. Jennifer Connelly has been better before, but she is equally satisfying.
Sadly, A Beautiful Mind cannot be recommended, and the fact that it was nominated for multiple Academy Awards probably puts a final word about the real meaning I give to the Oscars.
6/10