Beautiful but Flawed

Rating: Null/10 (2 March 2002)

The acting in this film is superb. Russell Crowe may get his second consecutive Oscar, (although I wouldn't mind it if they gave it to Tom Wilkinson, either). His run of performances in LA Confidential, The Insider, Gladiator and this is amazing. One of the best actors of our time. God was in a good mood when he made Jennifer Connelly and he included both intelligence and talent in the package. Even better is the directing of Ron Howard, one of those long-time Hollywood craftsman who may finally get his due this year, (he should have gotten it for Apollo 13 but the academy loves actors who direct their own films). What's especially great is that Howard let us see this story from the heros perspective. We figure things out when he does. What seems real to him seem just as real to us.
The one flaw is the depiction of schizophrenia. I surfed the web on this subject when I got home and the malady is far more complex than this movie suggests and the solution is no where near as simple, (really, there is none). Similarly, autism is much more complex than in Rainman and split personality is much more complex than in The Three Faces of Eve, etc. A movie is just not an adequate forum to explore all the aspects of mental illness. But that doesn't mean you can't make a good movie about a character who suffers from one and all three of these are certainly good movies.