Real, reel and surreal

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2004)

A BEAUTIFUL MIND is an extremely odd film. On the surface it is the standard this-happened-that-happened biopic, the subject being a Nobel-winning mathematician named John Nash. But by the end of the film, instead of feeling you have learned about the man, the viewer is apt to understand him even less.
The facts in the film are, at best shaky in the way all movie biographies play fast and loose with reality just to squeeze a man's life into two hours of screen time. Plus, questions arose after the film's release regarding embarrassing facts about the man that were left out, for one reason or another. But the biggest distraction is how the film blurs reality to somehow duplicate the man's own schizophrenia.
This is a film that tells a a story based on facts, takes dramatic license with facts, supposedly obscures the facts and makes up "facts" that aren't reality to anyone accept one character within the film. What is real life, reel life and surreal life may not ever be really clear. On the one hand, I admire how director Ron Howard does a "Twilight Zone" number on the audience, leading us to accept one thing only to slap us in the face with a new reality later. I don't necessarily think he goes far enough in exploring the plot possibilities. Nash's mental problems liberates Howard to try some daring stuff, but the reality that Nash is a living, breathing individual ropes him back in. The film might have been better (and oddly, more honest) had the whole story been fictional from page one of the screenplay.

Like Nash, the film finds a way of freeing itself of the boundaries that reality sets, unlike Nash, the film might have been better not totally regaining those boundaries. As is, the film is a solid enough piece of filmmaking: well acted and skillfully dishonest with the viewer.

But the best thing about A BEAUTIFUL MIND is Russell Crowe's nuanced performance. Even without the delusional gimmickry, his performance following Nash's life from youth to old age is satisfying. The irony is that Crowe's performance is what lifts the film up above the ordinary, yet when Oscar time came around, he was overlooked and all the other major players were rewarded. Crowe was the real thing; all else was illusion. At the Oscars, the illusion won.