A good story about schizophrenia

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2002)

A Beautiful Mind, is not a movie about the life of John Nash or about a mathematical genius. It is about a person whose schizophrenia gets worse and worse and how he overcomes it.
To label it as a story of John Nash, portrayed here by Russell Crowe, is inaccurate. Much of the unsavory parts of his life has been edited out and other parts has been changed. This is all to make him a character whose only flaw is his sickness, which is also something the filmmaker wants the people to sympathize with. Plus, many characters seem to be invented so that it will easily fill the story. Watching the film at first, and then finding out his true life, you feel as if have been conned by the filmmakers. I think if they dealt with all aspects of his life, likeable or not, his character would have been more real, and it would have made a fuller and more complex film.
The mathematics aspects of the film seems to be glossed over much like window dressing, all to display his abstract genius mind without delving into anything deep and truly explaining the complexities of it. When I was watching the film and saw the numbers being highlighted, I thought this was a pathetic joke, something like math for dummies, a picturisque coffee table version. Eventually you realize the movie has nothing to do with mathematics. In some aspect, I was disappointed by it.
The film's true focus is on his sickness, including all the delusions he has, his treatments and all the effects it had on him, his temptation to go back to his old exciting self and eventually his will to fight the battle on his own. It all makes for a emotional drama, although it is one that is heavily sugar coated by Hollywood.
Russell Crowe performed remarkably in this film. He was always a versatile actor, with a great performance in The Insider. If it was not for the mysterious Oscar that he got for The Gladiator, he surely would have won one for this. As for the Oscar that Ron Howard and the film got, it is questionable since the film was not groundbreaking. I guess that is why films like this gets Ron the Oscars and Mulholland Drive gets David Lynch the award at Cannes.
In all, recommended, given that one take it as a film about a man's fight with his sickness and nothing more.