"A" for Acting, "B" for Story, "C" for Accuracy  that adds up to a "B", right?

Rating: 7/10 (3 September 2006)

It feels pretty paltry and dry to grade a film on accuracy  especially since "A Beautiful Mind (2001)" is a dramatization and not a documentary. But when the director not only chooses to omit significant aspects of its biographical figure but richly glosses over almost everything in his life in a lush Hollywood coating up for Academy praise, then I as John Nash, would feel pretty stiffed at seeing the end result. But then I am not John Nash  I'm just a movie-goer looking to be entertained, touched and inspired in some way, and I was 2 out 3.
These two points are difficult to pinpoint, but I would attribute one of them to the acting in the film, which is sensationally layered and realistic from all parties. Russell Crowe may be a jerk in real life, but he clearly knows his stuff on screen and he is very convincing as genius-mathematician-turned-schizophrenic John Nash. We follow his career and his life starting out at Princeton, getting married, and ending up in Stockholm, heartily accepting the Nobel Prize. He ages 47 years in the film but Russell Crowe is perfect at every stage.
So the film makes it clear to us that John Nash is a genius man. Yet I was never mesmerized by his 'beautiful' mind  not in the same way I was with other cinematic geniuses in films like Good Will Hunting, Pi, Enigma and Amadeus. This is because you cannot trace his mathematical thoughts, we do not get to follow his genius pattern ideas and oh, when he draws an umbrella-shape in the stars for Alicia (Connelly) IT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE AN UMBRELLA. At all. It looks like a couple of dots, sorry. Very romantic, poignant moment though.
While this sounds like a happy and acknowledged life, it is everything but for John Nash. He is the victim of schizophrenia, which makes him paranoid, delusional and insecure. He is never at 'the height of his career', but always a bruised man plagued by his own mind. It just takes him a while to realise it and shake him from his paranoid state. This part is handled superbly in the film -- the break-down is perfect and heartfelt and Jennifer Connelly is there as a supporting wife all along.
That actually bothered me somewhat, and it is where the glossy Hollywood autopilot is switched on and Ron Howard leans back in his directing chair. While Russell Crowe is great and Jennifer Connelly is great, their marriage is TOO great. The real Alicia Nash wasn't the pretty little devoted wife to a troubled husband all these years; she divorced him in 1963. Another polished detail that irked me (moreso than the perfect marriage) was the Nobel Prize culmination. The real John Nash shared his prize with two others, but in the film Russell Crowe appears as a sole winner giving a poignant, sappy speech about "the equations of love", and the audience cheers, claps and stands up at the end of it.
So in summary, if you do not mind the occasional lofty Hollywood approaches to drama, then this is a very good film. Russell Crowe carries it, Jennifer Connelly supports it and Ed Harris and Paul Bettany add further weight to an already respected cast. It is a well-sewn together product with nice cinematic harmony and my favourite aspect was the subtle nuances in John Nash's delusions that distinguished them from reality. You can spot this at the beginning if you pay attention.
7.5/10