Lives up to the hype

Rating: 8/10 (9 May 2002)

Life is a long, subtle and complex entity riddled with ambiguity and questions, without neat little dividers or convenient scenes. In short it is often a frustrating and confusing experience, which is one of the reasons why motion pictures have become as successful and as ubiquitous as they have, because they offer an escape from the problematic nature of our circumstances and allow us to dream for a few hours.
If you wish to see a balanced and intelligent portrayal of either the life of nobel prize winner John Nash or the effects of Schizophrenia then A Beautiful Mind should be well down your list, if even on it at all. However if you want 2 hours of well produced and well acted drama, and have it in you to forgive a few oversights then Ron Howard's multi Oscar winner succeeds.
The film follows the life of John Nash from his obsessive and turbulent time at Princeton university where he writes a groundbreaking paper on an economics related subject, through to his study at Wheeler labs where he becomes embroiled in top secret government work as delusions start to take over his life.
The strength of A Beautiful Mind is in how powerfully it evokes Nash's delusions, to the extent that you not only starting questioning exactly who around him is real, but wishing that some of his fantasies really were real, and as such, if you let it, the film draws you into the characters tortured world, where he is torn between impossible decisions because of his confused judgements.
The performances are all excellent and aided by the scripts wise decision to restrict tearful emotive speeches to a minimum instead of soliloquising the audience into submission. The supporting roles from Ed Harris and Paul Bethany are crucial and well delivered. Even Russell Crowe's Forrest Gump accent is forgivable due to the general restraint shown in a part that most people would have showboated throughout in. Whilst it still pales next to his remarkable performance in The Insider, this confirms that Russell Crowe's ability remains undiminished by the corrupting effects of Hollywood stardom.
Where the superficially similar Iris struggled to impress with an intricate flashback structure and dreamy abstract visuals Ron Howard keeps things relative basic, with only some fairy dust special effects trying to add a little too much saccharine to the tale (whenever Nash cracks a code it seems as if Tinkerbell is pointing the way for him with the amount of sparkles on the screen). The result of this is that whilst A Beautiful Mind may function only on a simple and restricted level, with little for the intellect or artistic eye to feast upon, it succeeds as potent storytelling where the performances and direction do their best not to obstruct or inhibit the fingers of the film plucking at heartstrings, which is what has made American cinema the most popular in the world.