Crowe should have won the Best Actor Oscar for this film

Rating: 9/10 (18 October 2019)

Crowe does a great job of playing mathematical whiz John Nash who always had a hard time dealing with people, partially because he just didn't get them, partially because social niceties were just beside the point to him. But Nash had big dreams due to his mathematical genius until schizophrenia stole those dreams. What is great about this film is that the viewer does not know that Nash's imaginary friends are imaginary until the film reveals that fact. What is real to Nash is real to the audience, up to a point.
His wife is not made out to be some kind of saint. She is frank after John is released from the hospital in that she mainly feels obligation. The anti psychotic drugs John is on make him unable to respond to her sexually, unable to carry on with his work in mathematics, unable to do much more than sit at home and stare. This is not what she signed up for, yet she stays.
And after several months of this, John makes a decision to stop taking the anti-psychotic drugs, try to deal with the illusions with will and with work, and try to scratch and claw his way back into mathematics. In the 1950s he is actually allowed back on campus at Princeton where he once was faculty. Today, insurance and legal issues would take that out of the hands of Princeton itself.
It's ultimately the story of how a man has to "cut one's coat according to one's cloth", as the old saying goes, of maybe not lowered expectations as much as slower expectations brought on by unforeseeable circumstances and obstacles.
A couple of minor things I really noticed were some touches Ron Howard put into the film. One is how as the years rolled on from the 1950s into the late 1960s young people were just ruder in general. Some of the students start mimicking Nash and his odd gait for laughs. So I guess a growing lack of empathy was part of social progress? The second thing is the reality that in the mid 20th century doctors really believed in insulin shock therapy, even though it is now known to be meaningless torture. What you are actually doing is taking somebody who is not diabetic and giving them insulin which induces seizures. It has been known to lead to coma and death in actual insulin dependent diabetics who end up with an overdose due to their body just absorbing insulin and excreting their own insulin slightly differently than is normal for them day to day.
Do realize this is not exactly the story of John Nash's life. He had a first marriage that he walked out on after his wife became pregnant. His second wife, Alicia, divorced him after six years of marriage in 1963. They did remarry in 2001. And Crowe definitely does not sound like he is from West Virginia, which was Nash's birthplace. But then all of these details would have been distracting and made the characters less sympathetic. After all, if I want to see the unvarnished truth about John Nash I should watch a PBS documentary, not a Hollywood movie!
But back to Crowe. Although every part of this film is well crafted, his performance is the heart of the film. I believe him when he is being a jerk, when he is a socially clueless romantic clumsily courting his wife, when he is afraid for his life, afraid for his sanity, afraid for the nothingness his life could become post diagnosis, and I believe his immersion into mathematics as he battles bravely to come back to the field that he loves.
I'd highly recommend this one as one of the more accessible 21st century Oscar winners. It is truly a classic.