Brilliant filmmaking, superb acting

Rating: 10/10 (14 August 2002)

Ron Howard (Splash, Cocoon, Backdraft, Apollo 13) has done excellent work as a director for which he has gotten little credit over the years. With this film comes a best director Oscar and a best picture Oscar and finally the recognition he deserves. Howard has always been good at presenting human stories, be they comedy or drama. He has a intuitive understanding of character motivation and is excellent at making his characters elicit strong emotions in the viewer. This is particularly true in this film.
The story is based on the life of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a mathematician and Nobel laureate who suffered from schizophrenia. The film gives us a unique first person perspective of the disease, drawing us into his world and allowing us to see what Nash sees. Howard's presentation is brilliant. At first Nash is presented as a bit eccentric, but lucid. As we experience his world, reality and illusion are so perfectly intertwined that we are not sure where the world ends and the mind begins. By fooling the audience Howard makes the subtle point that to the schizophrenic it all seems real. In attempting to evaluate Nash's world we get a distant understanding of the confusion that results when a rational person attempts to cope with a world that is part real and part hallucination.
While this is a biopic, it is more fiction than fact. A great deal of dramatic license is taken since Nash freely admits that he has little recollection of the years when he suffered from the disease. The powerful speech at the end of the film where he thanks his wife after receiving his Nobel Prize is pure Hollywood. Included in the DVD is footage of the actual Nobel ceremony and no speeches were given. Yet, we can forgive the latitude taken because the story is so inspirational.
From a production standpoint, special note must be given to the makeup department, which ages Russell Crowe so magnificently. As the movie progresses through four decades, Nash is realistically depicted and aged appropriately. Likewise, the art department does a fine job rendering four different periods, matching costumes, props and sets to the times.
Yet, with all the fine production values, this film excels most in the acting. Russell Crowe turns in a career performance in a career abundant in great performances. This character is the antithesis of the Russell Crowe we've come to expect. Instead of strong, tough and balanced, with a sharp worldly intelligence, he plays an eccentric and convoluted man with quirks, nervous habits and a psyche obviously out of balance. Crowe completely immerses himself in the enormous volume of the role, effortlessly moving between its elements from audacity to paranoia to tenderness to genius. This is an accomplishment that is light years beyond his Academy Award performance in `Gladiator', good as it was.
Jennifer Connelly puts herself on the map with an Oscar for best supporting actress. It is always difficult to avoid getting lost in the presence of an actor as powerful as Crowe, but Connelly stays right with him, delivering a moving performance as Nash's steadfast wife.
Ed Harris was my favorite to nose out Crowe for best actor in last year's Academy Awards. Harris gave a brilliant performance playing Jackson Pollock in `Pollock' (also featuring Jennifer Connelly in a small role) that was trampled under by the `Gladiator' Oscar juggernaut. As if to say, `If you can't beat him, join him', Harris goes toe to toe with Crowe in some of the most intense scenes in the film. Harris lends significant energy and intrigue to the movie with an urgent performance as the operative who recruits Nash to break codes for the government.
This film is nothing short of fantastic. It is expertly directed, superbly acted and meticulously crafted. It presents great drama while also bringing insight into a stigmatizing disease to a wide audience. I rated it a 10/10. It rightfully ran away with the Best Picture Oscar. If you see only one motion picture this year, make sure it is this one.