A fine film

Rating: 8/10 (4 March 2002)

A Beautiful Mind is, on its surface, a story of a brilliant mathematician who submits to schizophrenia, but underneath its a fascinating examination of the power of human perception, and the danger of suspicion when it clouds intellect. It's a powerful film with exceptional lead performances and strong direction and script.
For two hours and fifteen minutes, Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly emerse us in the lives of their characters, John and Alicia Nash. Nash is a brilliant but arrogant and antisocial mathematician, who slowly loses his grip on reality and becomes consumed by paranoia and schizophrenia, and Alicia is his pupil-turned-wife-turned-caretaker when he becomes dangerously unstable. Crowe's performances is phenomenal, on par with the best of his work, and certainly superior to the role that won him an Oscar, and Connelly, brilliant last year in Requiem For A Dream, constantly finds ways to support and compliment him.
The film's Oscar nominations and box office revenue speak to its success, but likely Crowe and Connelly will receive the lion's share of the credit. One shouldn't overlook the work by director Ron Howard. He takes a potentially dreary story, filled with insanity and lots (and I mean lots) of mathematical equations, and constantly finds new ways to portray them visually. A standout; Nash rides around in circles on his bicycle, muttering to himself, as the camera rises to bird's eye level, revealing his pattern as the shot fades to a window with the same pattern written on it; the symbol of infinity.
The best movies present us with new ideas, questions to ask ourselves reflect on. I wasn't just engrossed in the situations of A Beautiful Mind, I was constantly absorbed by the questions it posed about reality and obsession. Nash tells his students at one point that a problem he has presented them with might take them months to solve. Or, even worse, he adds with a wry smile, the rest of their human existence. Don't expect the answers to the questions in this movie to come even that quickly.