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Rated: PG 13
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, et al.
Director: Ron Howard Review A
Beautiful Mind manages to twist enough pathos out of John Nash's
incredible life story to redeem an at-times goofy portrayal of
schizophrenia. Russell Crowe tackles the role with characteristic fervor,
playing the Nobel prize-winning mathematician from his days at Princeton,
where he developed a groundbreaking economic theory, to his meteoric rise
to the cover of Forbes magazine and an MIT professorship, and on through
to his eventual dismissal due to schizophrenic delusions. Of course, it is
the delusions that fascinate director Ron Howard and, predictably, go
astray. Nash's other world, populated as it is by a maniacal Department of
Defense agent (Ed Harris), an imagined college roommate who seems straight
out of Dead Poets Society, and an orphaned girl, is so fluid and
scriptlike as to make the viewer wonder if schizophrenia is really as
slick as depicted. Crowe's physical intensity drags us along as he works
admirably to carry the film on his considerable shoulders. No doubt the
story of Nash's amazing will to recover his life without the aid of
medication is a worthy one, his eventual triumph heartening.
Unfortunately, Howard's flashy style is unable to convey much of it. --Fionn
Meade ------------- While "A Beautiful Mind"
is a bibliography movie to some folks and a love one to some others, I
view it as an art movie. It is a powerful story of mental struggle and
spiritual triumph (or survival, or concession, depending on how you look
at it). The three delusional images Nash has reflect three basic desires
in one's real life --(Parcher) a grand mission toward the society and
history that makes one feel self-important and competent, (Charles) a
lifetime friendship that disregards the external society but comforts and
encourages your innest soul, and (Marcy) a chance of giving and caring for
the weaker and the
younger. These desires die hard. I found it extremely touching when Dr.
Rosen said to Alicia (Mr. Nash's wife), "imagine ... they have been your
best friends, now they are not dead, they are not gone, but worse, they
have never been...", and when Nash told Alicia, "sometimes I really miss
talking to him [Charles]". The fact that Nash has a loving wife from the
very beginning and an academic recognition in the end actually made his
transition to the "real world" much easier, as he satisfied some of the
desires in an alternative way, imagine other schizophrenia patients who
have nothing to hang on to in their "real world". The first half of the
movie is wisely tricky, the second is exceptionally powerful, and the
music is extraordinary.
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