A Beautiful Mind is a wonderfully unique look at the life of a gifted Nobel prize winner

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2003)

A Beautiful Mind
July 2003 Jane Dooley John Desando Film Class

A Beautiful Mind is a wonderfully unique look at the life of a gifted Nobel prize winner whose schizophrenia challenges his desires to succeed. Russell Crowe stars as John Nash the highly accomplished mathematician, and Jennifer Conelly as his wife, Alicia. Director Ron Howard starts the movie in the 1940's as Crowe enters Princeton University with an arrogant attitude and a loner style.
Crowe spends his college days focusing on game theories as his brain spends time sending him into frightening delusions. These delusions escalate to the point where Crowe believes the Russians are communicating with him through coded messages in newspapers and magazines. Howard continues to demonstrate how a disease can affect such a complex mind. This pattern continues to haunt him throughout his life, although his supportive wife Jennifer Connelly struggles to keep Crowe within the realms of society.

Ed Harris plays a federal agent who pursues Crowe and occupies most of his horror within his delusions. As Crowe truly believes he is the `chosen one' to transcribe secret messages, his behavior becomes even more bizarre to his wife and friends. Connelly makes a decision to seek help for her tortured husband as he tries to escape the overwhelming madness in his mind.
Like Salma Hayek, the Mexican painter in Frida, John fights for his inner passion just as Salma Hayek does to become a well-known artist in her country. Fridas complex mind is also a pillar of strength in her fight to overcome her disabilities. Both characters are in agonizingly difficult situations in their pursuit of a dream while they fight to hold on to the one person they truly love the most.

A Beautiful Mind, takes place in a more conservative and simple time uses a variety of angled shots to set the emotions. The intensity of shots changes as Crowes mind fluctuates from reality to hallucination. Crowe seeing himself in various situations, that are not real, enable the shots to be taken from high above or from down toward the ground looking up. This style helps build the realism in his mind. One of the scenes that depict this wonderfully is when John thinks Harris has taken him to a secret complex. The building houses the equipment and a device used for Crowe to decode what are to be secret messages up on the screens. The letters and numbers appear with a glow and the camera angle is shot from the floor up.
This is an incredible biography of one mans life who teeters in and out of sanity with the strength and devotion of his wife to carry him through. Crowe shows us that even in the dark depths of our minds we can rise up and conquer our demons with continued force to live our lives as best we can.