Rating: 
Summary: so anyway, what were his groundbreaking ideas?
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is about a mathematical genius who suffers from schizophrenia. The first third or so of the movie, we are given no knowledge of this and we believe the hallucinations he has are true. The movie spans over his lifetime from college to old age, starting around the 1940's or so. With a doctoral degree from Princeton, he receives an important job with the government trying to break codes from the Russians to discover where "the bomb" is. I kind of felt like he must have after this first third or so of the movie because I wondered what parts of it were real and which were only in his mind. His wife stands by him despite his disease, which must have taken extraordinary love on her part. The movie didn't communicate this love very eloquently, like why she loved him so much. It doesn't explain to us what his ground-breaking theories were or what work it was the he really did, apart from the hallucination that he was breaking codes for his Top Secret mission. The whole movie is pretty well summed up in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. As a mathematician, he explains that his career has taken him to the very ends of logic and he kind of stigmatizes it saying that it was the love of his wife that was most vital to him and his career.
Rating: 
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is suspenseful and thought provoking. Russell Crowe is probably the most versatile actor on the screen today. As the mathematician John Nash he's convincingly humble and over confident, paranoid and brilliant. The movie centers on Nash's accomplishments and his schizophrenia. The surreal effects and scenes make "A Beautiful Mind" more dramatic and cohesive than historically accurate, but as a film it succeeds in both informing and entertaining. "A Beautiful Mind" is nearly three hours long, but well worth the time. You'll remember the scenes long after the film is over. It's one to discuss with friends.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Movie - Realistic Portrayal
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is the true story of a professor who grew suffering from a horrible mental illness known as paranoid-schizophrenia. The movie comes from the professor's perspective in the first person and you see first hand what a paranoid-schizophrenic individual experiences on a daily basis. Having spent more than a decade as a former psychologist specializing in the mental health sector, I have often imagined what it would be like to be inside the mind of one of my many clients who suffered from this horrible mental illness. "A Beautiful Mind" portrays what I envisioned. It's hard for most of us who have never had a psychosis to understand what is wrong with individuals like this. If you want a dose of experience, view this flick! Keep in mind that this professor (portrayed by Crowe) is considered a higher functioning paranoid-schizophrenic because his intelligence is outstanding. What many do not understand is that in most cases, it takes a very creative and intelligent mind to become schizophrenic. Now, the movie does a beautiful job of portraying the life of this professor, but from my understanding, there were various liberties taken in the film. That's too bad, but I'm not judging the movie based upon its authenticity as much as I am with the final outcome of just the movie itself. So, I'll not base my ratings on that aspect. What stops me from giving a full five stars is the acting job Crowe does. Don't get me wrong, he did most everything right that I can think of. However, he plays a southern gentleman (West Virginian if I am correct) and his accent suffers. Since he is Australian, I think he did quite an admirable job at trying to sound southern, but it detracted from the movie a bit too much as if it were forced. I might have gotten a different actor for the part to make it more authentic, but of course, Crowe is big time right now so I understand their decision. Regardless, get the DVD. You'll love it and it'll forever be a popular part of your collection!
Rating:
Summary: Formula Tearjerker
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is well-made and well-directed, but not inspired. This is formula for box office and Oscar contention. Much of the facts in John Nash's life has been altered, but that is not the biggest problem. It is entirely unclear why everyone in the film goes out of his/her way supporting the hero (or anti-hero) who is really an anti-social nerd with big personality problems. The audience is directed to empathize with Russell Crowe, not John Nash. If someone less hunky, say Kevin Spacey, plays the main character, it will not have the same effect. Many of the scenes are forcibly poignant, such as when Jennifer Connolly breaks down, Russell Crowe being accepted by his students and peers, and the Nobel accepting speech. It would have been a better character study, if the director were not so keen on turning the main character into a "lovable" person at the end.
Rating:
Summary: Crowe's beautiful performance saves the movie
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" tells the story of legendary mathematician John Nash, widely credited with inventing "game theory" and cursed with paranoid schizophrenia. Arriving in Princeton university in the late 1940's (the film makes the point of that these were pivotal days for mathematics - with theoretical mathematicians taking credit for winning WWII by breaking enemy codes, cracking the secrets of nuclear fission and inventing the economic theories that put the world back together again.) Socially awkward, Nash struggles to craft an original mathematical idea - suffering a sort of mathematician's block while his peers churn out successful, if derivative work. Nash seems consumed by the idea that a hidden mathematical order can explain seemingly random or chaotic events - the feeding patterns of pigeons, the mating habits of drunken Princeton students or how badly a person's taste in clothing is. With the help of a free-wheeling roommate, Nash appears to overcome some inner demons and publishes a thesis which brazenly offers a statistical and theoretical model for explaining these seemingly spontaneous events. The theory, which Nash hits on trying to explain how one of five guys will manage to get a beautiful blonde's attention in a local bar, has larger applications - everything from macroeconomics to the strategies of nuclear war - and flies in the face of traditional economics. The film cuts to Nash a few years later - now more suave and successful crunching numbers at MIT and occasionally for the Government. The script makes the point that not all is right with Nash, but counterbalances with hints that Nash is merely a forceful personality (teaching calculus in an undershirt because it's too hot not to) with a broad imagination (picking out shapes formed by stars, or recurring patterns among large number groups in Russian transmissions). Despite his quirks, Nash manages to maintain respect among peers who shunned him in Princeton (where he never attended class) and the love of Alicia Nassar (Jennifer Connelly), his future wife and biographer. He also finds himself under the attentions of Parcher (Ed Harris), a shadowy cold warrior who runs a secret decryption program in an abandoned warehouse on MIT grounds - one that everybody thought empty. Parcher chills Nash with a tale of a Nazi A-bomb stolen and smuggled somewhere into America by a soldiers of a radical faction of the Soviet Army. Ordered to scan seemingly meaningless newspaper and magazine articles for clues (the media is apparently part of the conspiracy) Nash papers his office with hundreds of pages linked by his red pen and arcana. In a film about schizophrenia (a decreased capacity to distinguish what is real from what is not), it's no surprise that Parcher's story (one that others would easily tout as "frighteningly plausible") is merely the latest and most elaborate delusion Nash suffers. Diagnosed a schizophrenic, subjected to insulin shock-therapy and a seemingly endless stream of other drugs, Nash takes a long fall from his exalted position as master-mathematician. Trying to avoid both drugs (because they inhibit both his intellect and his passions), Nash is tortured by his delusions which reduce him to a seeming cripple (students at Princeton lampoon his distinctive limp). This was a heartbreaking film that makes a very simple point - that love can't be theorized. Numbers create logical but entirely delusional constructs while Nash's love for his wife offers him some link with reality. That said, the film - brilliantly lead by Russel Crowe - makes some missteps. (I'll let others deal with the supposed factual oversights like Nash's sexual ambiguity or his abandonment of an illegitimate child) Crowe's love keeps him from sliding deeper into madness, but it's a chance meeting with a promising student in Princeton's library that truly unlocks Nash's sanity, and reveals that teaching may set his mind free. Also, the script glances over those most important years - those in which Nash had dealt with his problem without resprting to debilitating medication. Was he truly able to manage? Was he productive? We just don't know. The script, much like Nash himself, also has a decreased capacity to tell the true from the imagined - real characters like Nash's colleagues and his son, and the forceful Dr. Rosen (Christopher Plummer) have little substance when compared to those the film quickly identifies as inventions of Nash's wounded psyche. Plummer's character stays long enough to warn Nash of his problem and convince his wife that those people her husband had mentioned never existed, then he disappears like a phantom. While we may suspect Ed Harriss's character, others have more urgency and plausibility than the real characters. Nash's delusions themselves remain confined to several characters whom he understands to be delusions yet continues to be plagued by. Also, there's little irony to those delusions - an imaginary friend, an imaginary young girl - or any inner explanation for why or how he his mind has constructed them. The film doesn't even explore the cautionary moral of the end of WWII, when outrageous advances in technology and the cold war combined to alter reality as never before and engender a sort of paranoid detachment among everybody. Still a triumph for Russell Crowe.
Rating:
Summary: very good-could have been great
Review: "Beautiful Mind" has a lot going for it: Russell Crowe's great performance, a compelling story line, strong direction, good score etc. It probably also deserved the Oscar of the films that were up for nomination. Even though I liked this movie a lot, it bugged me that I wasn't seeing the absolute truth. It appears that Hollywood feels that they have to manipulate the stories they film- have a feel-good ending-add Hollywood gloss etc.etc. ala "The Player" I just wish they trusted us to be interested in the facts as they stand. I don't feel that distorting the truth, as they have in this film, makes a better movie. It insults our intelligence by assuming that we value entertainment (a formulaic entertainment, at that) over the real, truly interesting stories of real people. They could have avoided the distortion in "a Beautiful Mind" and instead of a great film we, instead, end up with a film that's merely a pretty good one. Still you should see it- there is still plenty to like and I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Put this on your must see list.
Review: "Beautiful Mind" has a wonderful(true) story with super acting. Crowe will get an Academy Award for it and it will be well earned. Watching this movie is a good lesson on what this type of mental illness is all about and how people with this disease suffer. It is also a love story and a great advertisment for enduring marriage through thick and thin. If you don't catch this at the theatre, be sure and check it out on DVD or video.
Rating:
Summary: Love is the Beauty of Life
Review: "Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life-the life which has the seed of ennobling thought and purpose within it-can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing, soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances."
-George Eliot In September, 1947, mathematical genius John Nash spends his time attempting to distinguish himself with a completely original idea at Princeton University in lieu of attending classes. He distances himself from the other students with his introverted and eccentric behavior and admits he doesn't really like people. He is so consumed with thought, he neglects his most basic needs and becomes so absorbed in his own serene thought processes he forgets to eat and sleep. In fact, no one can really relate to him until he meets a beautiful student who attends one of his classes. Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) seems to have the patience to work through situations in real life, that Nash doesn't have time for or is not concerned with. His mind won't let him deal with real life and he is tossed into an unrealistic fantasy by delusions that seek to destroy him. Alicia falls for his mind, they marry and her emotional IQ is so high that she truly shows her husband unconditional love. He enters an imaginary life in which he helps the government break codes in magazines. His wife becomes increasingly aware of his mental condition and tries to help him see what reality truly is. She needs to believe that something extraordinary is feasible. She believes he can conquer anything. The problem is, he is suffering from a mental illness which is seeking to destroy his world. As he descends into a world of his own making, schizophrenia takes over and he has to take medications that interfere with his ability to "do his job." This causes him immense grief and he lacks purpose. His job actually turns out to be completely of his own imagination. This espionage part of the story is absorbing and exciting. The emotional elements are highly rewarding and the actual love story was for me at least, overwhelmingly beautiful. Through John Nash's life he learns what is truly important and in that is the true beauty of this story. Ron Howard shows genius in his ability to so capture your heart with his directing. A Beautiful Mind will draw from you those exquisite emotions only a story of great depth and sensitivity can. The characters are genuinely persuasive and screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman crafted one of the most intelligent scripts to date. An exceptional score reflects a complex backdrop of emotions and in this mirror of music the rays of reflection will touch your soul. A Beautiful Mind is an eloquent portrayal of John Nash's life with an emphasis on the emotional torment mental illness can evoke contrast with the sheer beauty of love. Highly Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Movie
Review: I love this movie. I thought it was a wonderful story that did a wonderful job of showing things
from John Nash's point of view. There were just enough twists in the movie to keep it
interesting. This is not an uplifting movie. My wife left thinking it was the most depressing
movie she has ever seen, but a little while later she liked the movie also. I really want to read the
book now, even though I understand it is quite different.
Rating:
Summary: Academics and Insanity: A lush mesmerizing view
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is a film that may take you by surprise due to the fact that it's excellence lives up to the high expectations that the hype surrounding it has created for it. I went in curious and excited, but wondering how a biopic could be that intriguing. What I found interesting about it is that I didn't know what part of the film to pay attention to: the story, the acting, the gorgeous cinematography and color scheme, or the score. Each seems to be a creature of its own and it's almost too much to try and incorporate them into one film and accept them all at once. As a film though, this one succeeds at a new level. Howard's style is engrossing and make the subject matter -Math, John Forbes Nash, and Schizophrenia- interesting. There's a scene when Nash tells his girlfriend (to-be wife) to pick a shape, he then proceeds to find that pattern in the sky, and Howard shows us what he sees. You are instantly made part of the film. In fact, Howard continually and ceaselessly shows us what Nash sees, which brings us into a different world; and this leads to a new portion of the storyline and integration with the rest of the film, though we may not know it. Nash's genius consists of the fact that he can see patterns in almost everything, leading him to be obsessively preoccupied with everything around him, we see what he sees. This contributes to his schizophrenia when he sees hallucinations, which we as an audience believe are real until we learn what is and what isn't. When he doubts, we doubt. It's an incredible way to keep us hooked, but not the only thing. The performances in this film are singularly marvelous. Watching Russell Crowe is like watching a little child in awe. He mumbles and does little hand motions and talks to himself and slumps and frowns and grins and looks like he has three hundred things whizzing around in his mind all at once. He's mezmerizing, and his body language and complete intensity makes up for his rather annoying accent. Jennifer Connelly, I believe, is the shining star of this film due to the fact that she doesn't have such the weight of stardom on her shoulders, but her performance is completely realistic and her subtlety and strength powerfully drive the character into a realm where any bit of a lesser actress would have failed miserably. And though it may not be as important, I feel that I must comment on it. The score by James Horner is beautiful. Due to the score, the beginning of the film, as in as soon as the film starts, is excellent. You wonder where it's going and where it'll start. It keeps the intensity and it's lushness throughout the film and only heightens the experience. Along side John Williams Harry Potter score this is the best score of the year, one of the best i've ever heard. Not to mention the outstanding costumes which looked incredibly comfortable, or the world that the cinematography evoked. You could feel each breeze, the rain, and the warmth in each scene. This is a fantastic film, and I daresay it grew on me. I went out of one mode into this unusual world of academics and insanity and basically lost myself in a way I never expected to in a drama.
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