beautiful but 2001's best?

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2002)

Although I was not very familiar with the history of John Nash, the man whose life this picture is based on, I did find the story compelling and the acting very good indeed. However if this was the best film of 2001 then it certainly was a mediocre year for movies. Yes the ending was moving but in a melodramatic movie-of-week sort of way. Jennifer Connelly gives a superb performance and she adds depth to her role as the stoic supportive wife. We can see her fear grow as the evidence mounts against her husband. Through her frustration the audience gets a sense of how hard it would be to stand by someone with that kind of illness. This makes the payoff at the end all the more sweet. But the fact that Nash's life story was cleaned up for the big screen does unfortunately detract from the movie. One can almost feel the focus groups and marketing surveys determining how the film will finally play out. This is a shame because of the remarkable and convincing way the audience is set-up to discover that Nash suffers from schizophrenia. If the film had gone on past the point where it ended I think it would have scored a bullseye. Because even without knowing that certain parts of Nash's life were left out, I still wondered if he really said the things he said when he gave his speech. The fact that the film ends where it does already seemed to make it just a little too much Hollywood. That parts of his life were left out to make the picture more "commercial" makes me wonder if other parts were over emphasized for dramatic effect. This takes a good film down a notch.