A load of bull

Rating: 5/10 (18 July 2007)

This hugely over-praised film was not only flavour of the month, it was flavour of the year and it went on to win the Academy Award as the year's best picture. The fact that it isn't really very good didn't seem to matter; it made mathematics sexy in the form of Russell Crowe as the real life mathematician and paranoid-schizophrenic John Nash and it conformed to Hollywood's idea of paranoid-schizophrenia, (fantasy characters that the audience sees just the way John sees them; a charismatic star who can overact all over the place but with whom the audience can empathize). Actually, Crowe isn't half bad, especially in the first half of the film before the madness really takes hold. Once it does it's all stops out and the script doesn't really help; there are no subtleties or shadings to it. When the pieces fall into place the film seems alarmingly conventional.
Director Ron Howard can't resist sentimentalizing everything so the film isn't so much about John Nash, 'the beautiful mind' of the title. but how a sick man is cured by the love of a beautiful woman. If the film wasn't based on fact it would be utterly unbelievable. In reality, of course, Hollywood altered the facts leaving out key events in Nash's life, (his bisexuality, for example, is never touched on), in the name of 'entertainment'.
Ironically the two best performances come from the actors Ed Harris and Paul Bettany who play the imaginary characters while Jennifer Connelly's much praised turn as the self-sacrificing wife never really escapes the confines of the role. This is self-sacrifice taken to the extreme and she was given the Oscar for her trouble.
There are a lot of people who find this film highly entertaining though I would doubt if anyone would find it profound. When Nash wins the Nobel Prize his speech is pure Hollywood drivel: just like the Oscars, in fact.