Begging for Oscars

Rating: 6/10 (11 March 2002)

Russell Crowe seemed to be chasing an Oscar as much as he was chasing anything insightful in the character of John Nash. And it's a crying shame when Jennifer Connolly, one of the most naturally voluptuous actresses in an era where rail-thin breast-enhanced women are the norm, looks so startlingly skinny in this movie. She does a good job, but her character degenerates into awfulness. When we first meet her, she's a bright grad student in mathematics who paints on the side, but once her life with Nash begins, she exists solely as The Wife, leaving us to wonder what ever happened to her math, her painting. Not that the movie cares, of course.