Happier Days Indeed

Rating: 4/10 (31 October 2004)

I really love Happy Days. There's something about Richie, Pottsie, Malph, the Fonze, and all the Cunninghams that just causes all of my aversions to sugar-coated Americana switch off. I cannot tolerate the Brady Bunch, Leave It to Beaver, Full House, etc, but a half-hour of Happy Days is pure television genius. I can't really explain why this is, but I surmise that I've always detected that, on some level, Happy Days didn't believe the myths it spun. It understood that the era it depicted was not all peaches and cream; there was something dark underneath all those episodes.
Those other shows, those happy-family sit-coms, seem to believe their mythic landscapes and I cannot abide them for that. Or something.
Well, as you all know, little Richie grew up and became a reasonably successful film director and produced, among others, A Beautiful Mind. And, man, does it make me yearn for Happy Days.
I'm not entirely sure why this film has been un-necessarily given the title of genius. It's really just another Hollywood bio-pic and, if I'm not mistaken, there have been very few of those that were worthwhile (Ed Wood, for example, or Baadasssss! or Auto Focus). Nevertheless, come February and March, they take home all sorts of little gold statuettes.
Russell Crowe offers another fine (though not Best Actor nomination worthy) performance as John Nash, schizophrenic genius extraordinaire, while Ed Harris proves again that he should receive more leading roles. He's one of the few character actors left in Hollywood who can waltz into any movie and instantly improve the film's quality. He was by far the finest point in the Hours and he's equally excellent here, yet again supplying the high-point in an otherwise mediocre movie (Truman Show and the aforementioned Hours anyone?). The remaining performances struck me as rather bland, as did the direction, and score.
The only other bright spot for me were occasional flashes of cinematographic brilliance supplied by Mr. Roger Deakins, who, though not at the top of his game, provided us with something better, at least, than his nadir thus far - O Brother Where Art Thou.
To be honest, though John Nash is certainly an important figure and has provided many important discoveries, I seriously question the need to give him his own film. Most great bio-pics serve a higher purpose than to worship the life they depict, offering the audience insight into something other than a so-called genius. A Beautiful Mind strives to do this, providing us with a glimpse into the world of mental illness, but ultimately the movie fails in this.
The movie ultimately is not about schizophrenia; it's about John Nash. I like my bio-pics the other way around; I like them to be about something and not about an individual or group (take Ed Wood, for example - a film not about one of the most interesting Hollywood figures, but rather about the under-side of Hollywood - the B-picture and the effects of Hollywood upon the stars it made famous and threw away) All in all, this was a mediocre film, not worth the attention it received and certainly not worth the $9 I gave them to see it in the theaters. I