Will appeal to the mindless U.S. Oscar-grabbing pap, but it's really not that good!

Rating: 4/10 (22 March 2002)

This film is wildly over-rated. I expect it may win Oscars, but that will be an absolute travesty, and simply a confirmation of the pap-loving and mindless U.S. audience. Is that confrontational in Oscar week? No. Look at the sort of films that do well on the big night! This film is like Chocolat - sugary sweet. Let's just hope for the sake of cinema that the Academy sees sense like it did with that. The film is historically completely inaccurate. But the serious crime is that schizophrenia is badly misrepresented. Rather than audi-intrusiveness in some schizophrenics, the film producers decided to opt for sixth-sense style sensationalism. How original. Nash's violent temper and bi-sexuality were almost completely disregarded, or sanitised, and the ending was puke-makingly sugary. The film has one, and only one, redeeming feature: Crowe has done it again. For all his odiousness as a person, he has managed a fine performance. But this film is otherwise hardly worth the entrance fee. Oh, and by the way, a biopic whilst a person is still alive? I don't think so. You end up with a piece of sychophantic drivel.