Hollywood-ized version of the John Nash story

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2006)

As has been pointed out, this film leaves out crucial details from Nash's life in order to give him wider appeal. Taken on its own terms it's just another medical tearjerker, like "Awakenings". Even Nash's delusions, the best scenes in the film, are made conventional.
It's still worth seeing because of the acting, above all from Harris, Bettany, and Crowe. Harris and Bettany both have great presence and are memorable without overdoing things. And Crowe not only gets Nash's strange manner and West Virginia accent down but does a believable elderly version (in make-up). The screenwriter has sugared up Alicia (who was also ambitious) into a benevolent earth mother, but Connelly does a decent job given that she has to spend most of her role whimpering things like "Talk to me!" or "You're sick, baby", or gazing worriedly at Nash, or just screaming. (We never find out who this Alicia was before she became Mrs. Nash, so her crisis doesn't amount to anything.) I also like Josh Lucas as Nash's hotshot competitor, Adam Goldberg as his college chum, and especially Judd Hirsch as his adviser (Hirsch demonstrates perfectly the old maxim: "Don't act; think.")