Excellent Performances In A Moving Story

Rating: 8/10 (11 August 2002)

This is an extremely well-done movie. I must admit that when I started to watch it I was lost after the first little while. It didn't seem to make a lot of sense, and it was certainly not what I was expecting from everything I had heard about "A Beautiful Mind." But without giving anything away, let me say that even if you have the same reaction, if you stick with this you will find out why the first 45 minutes or so seems so strange. In fact, that first part of the movie is so well done that when you first watch it you're tempted to just dismiss this as a disappointingly bad movie. But don't do that. Stick with it; it's worth it.
Russell Crowe's performance as Dr. John Nash - the brilliant Princeton mathematician who struggles his entire life with mental illness - is magnificent, and demonstrates his versatility as an actor. He portrays both Nash's brilliance and his personal angst perfectly, and brings to the screen a man whom we can all feel for. Equally powerful was the performance of Jennifer Connelly as his wife Alicia, whose struggle with Nash's illness is just as valiant as John's is. Connelly brings out the pain of living in this nightmare, but her love - while tested - is also the source of hope for him and eventually helps him to persevere and even triumph.
Moving, and at times funny (I loved Nash's line: "what's the point of being crazy if you can't have any fun with it?") once the story really gets going it has you questioning almost everything that happens - is it real or not? One of the few criticisms I could make would be that Christopher Plummer didn't really seem comfortable in the role of Nash's psychiatrist, Dr. Rosen. At least, that was my sense. That aside, this really is a great piece of work from Director Ron Howard.
8/10