A beautiful mind hides an ugly soul

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2002)

There are some spoilers below, though not many, I think.
****
One can chalk up "Beautiful Mind's" award success to the Academy's desperation not to give "Lord of the Rings" the Oscars it so richly deserved. (Especially when one considers that "Hurricane" didn't get Oscars for similar omissions just a few years ago) I feel vaguely queasy when I read either comments on how well-researched this movie was, or how the complete lack of truth is outweighed by the mushy inspirational story. (Well, I don't find it inspirational because it hasn't got a shred of truth)
John Nash's character is carefully whitewashed of his more glaring flaws, the ones that might not have been relevent to his schizophrenia. In this movie, he is not a bisexual (and no amount of denial by him or Alicia will change what people think), he never tried to renounce American citizenship, he never had affairs, he made a Nobel prize speech gushing over his wife, he never made passes at men and got busted for it, he never abandoned a child, he and Alicia didn't have a rotten marriage that eventually broke up for years because of his schizophrenia (can't have a sad ending concerning the devoted little wifie), or any of the truly negative aspects of his persona. According to this movie, Nash was a good guy who was only mean because of his disease.
Russell Crowe gives his usual disjointedly stone-faced performance, with plenty of facial tics to convince us that Nash is schizophrenic; Jennifer Connelly is okay, but she is never given anything really award-worthy, and her character is too icky-sweet to be likeable. The supporting characters are pretty flat, though the actors are clearly doing all that they are capable of doing.
Does the sentimental "inspiring" love story override the blatant lack of facts? Nope. This is portrayed as a biopic, and as such you expect to hear about the life of the person involved. How much of Nash's life is in here? Not much! And how can a story, supposedly at least semi-true, be inspirational if it isn't true? Lurking behind the inspirational love story is the huge, hulking, ugly truth. I couldn't watch a single gooey scene without thinking, "yeah, sure, like THAT happened!"
And frankly it is the sign of an undeserving director that Howard can't give us a view of Nash without erasing his flaws. A truly talented director would give us an unflinching portrait of Nash -- good and bad -- and attempt to get the audience to like and/or respect Nash (even grudgingly). But apparently that is beyond Howard's skill. Instead, he tries to manipulate us into liking Nash without his flaws rather than despite them. And it makes those flaws all the more glaring by doing so.
If this movie had been a fictional story about a fictional mathematician, it would have been a decent flick. But as they try to palm it off as an inspirational biopic, it falls into a beautiful mess. Rent the snubbed "Fellowship of the Ring" for a truly emotional, well-directed, excellently-acted movie that could even be called... dare I say "Beautiful"?