Masterful storytelling and incredible acting make for a wonderful film

Rating: 10/10 (23 August 2019)

I knew very little about A Beautiful Mind before I saw it, and I think that made watching it a far better experience. I would highly recommend to anyone watching this film for the first time to not read anything about it before seeing it. You should go into it with no prior knowledge about it whatsoever. That is what made it, for me, an amazing experience. So, I would suggest that you not read this review unless you have seen the film.
This movie is based on the real-life story of John Nash, a brilliant but antisocial and slightly arrogant mathematician. It follows his story, beginning when he is at Princeton University as a graduate student. Here, we learn much about his character and several of the characters that will appear later in the film. We then move five years forward in time, when Nash is now teaching at MIT. There, he meets a student, Alicia, who will end up being his wife and a huge part of his life. Nash also meets a Department of Defense agent, William Parcher, who asks him to decipher secret codes hidden in magazines and newspapers that he says the Soviets are secretly communicating through. Nash now has to hide his work from his wife and everyone around him as he secretly works for the government.
However, there is really a second plot that starts up right around when Nash is chased in a car by the Soviets and nearly killed. He becomes increasingly paranoid, and his wife eventually decides to call a psychiatric hospital to get Nash help. It is then that we see that Nash has not been working for the government after all. He has been unknowingly creating hallucinations that only he can interact with. Parcher does not exist, and his roommate from when he was at Princeton, Charles, who he had considered his best friend, was not real either. Nash had been putting his top-secret letters into a mailbox at an abandoned house. They had never been opened. The remainder of the film focuses on Nash's struggles to get better and learn the difference between what's real and what's just a fragment of his imagination.
The story of John Nash is absolutely incredible, and the film follows it right up to the point where he wins the Nobel Prize for some of his revolutionary work. It's a movie that you just can't stop watching. Your eyes are glued to the screen, you are on the edge of your seat the entire way through. It is over two hours, and there is really no action or "excitement," but it is never dull, never boring, and it feels much shorter than its runtime. Nash's story is amazing and I'm so glad it was converted into a film.
Ron Howard is a fantastic director, and he really shows it here. This is almost definitely his best work as a filmmaker. This film has some of the best storytelling I have ever seen. Howard's method of keeping the audience engaged and even second-guessing themselves is incredible. The way he only shows everything from Nash's point of view for the first half of the film is masterfully done, and because I didn't know anything about this movie before watching it, he had me completely fooled when the big reveal came. And wow, what a twist. It might be on the level of "The Sixth Sense." It's that good. But what I was saying was that the audience is kept completely within Nash's head right up to the twist. We see as he sees, so we are as fooled by his hallucinations as he is. It's all set up so perfectly so that the illusions and the real people never have to encounter each other. Nash can't tell the difference, so neither can we. It's perfectly executed. Ron Howard's direction is what made the reveal as impactful as it was, making the film infinitely better.
James Horner's score for this film is also amazing. It truly captures, and even enhances, the beauty of this story. Music is such a huge part of creating the mood of a movie or scene, and Horner's score pulls all the right emotions out of you. He is especially talented at composing themes that match the film perfectly, and he definitely did it again with this movie.
As a character, John Nash is crafted very well. He is brilliant; you could probably say he's a genius. However, he is also extremely arrogant when it comes to his intelligence, and he seems to feel that he is vastly superior to his peers. He constantly feels that he is wasting his time when forced to communicate with those that he feels are lesser than him. He also has many issues socially, and tends to keep to himself; he really doesn't have many friends at all, and those that he is friends with, he is not that close with at all. The film portrays Nash as highly intelligent, but also flawed and lacking social skills, and I think that this makes him, as a character and a person, much more interesting.
I also liked the way Alicia, Nash's wife, was portrayed as incredibly important in Nash's life. As we can see from Nash's acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize, she was the one who was there for him when he was struggling with his own mind, and this was a huge factor in his eventual success. She was shown to be loyal and caring to her husband, and without her, Nash would likely not have even survived for long in the condition he was in.
Russell Crowe is unbelievably good as John Nash. It is shocking and a bit sad to find that he did not win the Oscar for his performance here. I mean, that's just further proof that the Oscars have very little credibility. The fact that he won the year before, or maybe some other factor, obviously affected the decision, and that's just unfair. The best performance should always win, regardless of circumstances; otherwise, what are we really honoring with these awards? Anyway, Crowe's performance was perhaps the defining trait of this film. His complete transformation into this role is nothing short of outstanding. If you've seen Crowe in other movies, you can tell that this is not the type of role he is naturally good at, but he rose to the challenge and blew me away. I mean, let's be honest, this role would have been a challenge for anyone. This was a very difficult character to become, but Crowe did it to absolute perfection. He captured every facet of Nash's personality perfectly, from the social awkwardness to the utter brilliance. Truly an incredible performance in every way possible.
Jennifer Connelly is also great as Alicia, backing up Crowe's performance well. She put a lot of heart and emotion into the role, and it really showed in the final result. Ed Harris plays a very convincing Parcher, Christopher Plummer is excellent as Doctor Rosen, and Paul Bettany is very good as Charles. It was overall some great acting from everyone throughout the film.
A Beautiful Mind is, quite simply, a beautiful movie. Incredible storytelling and direction, as well as magnificent acting, especially from Russell Crowe in the lead, make this a truly unforgettable and amazing film.