A Beautiful Mind (Full Screen Awards Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A Not So Beautiful Mind
Review: A Beautiful Mind, nominated for eight Academy Awards, manages to twist enough feeling out of John Nash's incredible life story to redeem an at times ludicrous portrayal of schizophrenia. Russell Crowe, who endures the role with characteristic fervor of John Nash, was known to be enthralled with Nash to the point where he even attempted to emulate his flurry of hand gestures. The Nobel prize-winning mathematician developed a groundbreaking economic theory while at Princeton, to only be topped by his appearance on the cover of Forbes magazine and to become a professor at MIT, followed by his demise brought on by his schizophrenic delusions. These delusions were portrayed in the film by means of director Ron Howard, but predictably they go astray. Nash begins to believe this "altered" world is his reality which is populated by a maniacal Department of Defense agent, played by Ed Harris, an imagined college roommate who seems right out of Dead Poet's Society, and an orphaned girl. These characters are represented so favorably that the audience begins to wonder if schizophrenia is really as slick as it is depicted. Crowe's physical intensity drags the viewer along as he works admirably to carry the film. No doubt the story of Nash's amazing will to recover his life with out the aid of medication is a worthy one, which makes his eventual triumph heartening. Unfortunately, Howard's flashy style is unable to convey much of it.
There are several important elements in Nash's very influential life that have been overlooked. For one, his most prestigious theory which was the Nash Equilibrium, which is a way of describing how people caught in a strategic decision-making situation may respond based on their assumptions about each others' behavior. Not only is this pivotal element skipped, except for in the fine print of the epilogue, casual viewers may also come away thinking that he was some sort of cross between a paranoid pseudo-code breaker gone awry, and a crazy genius who devised a mathematical approach for picking up women and then forgot all about it. A little less Hollywood depiction would have been nice but the film is still deserving of the four Academy Awards achieved in 2001 for best picture, best director (Howard), best supporting actress (Connelly), and best adapted screenplay (Goldsman). Crowe's depiction of Nash earned him an Academy Award Nomination, which is generous in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: THE AUDIENCE IS MORE MATURE THAN DIRECTORS THINK
Review: I know Nash from game theory classes, specifically for his most prodigious econometric contribution that's popularly known as Nash Equilibrium, a way of describing how people caught in a strategic decision-making situation may respond based on their assumptions about each others' behaviour.

Not only is that pivotal element skipped (except for fine print in the epilogue), casual viewers may also come away thinking that he was some sort of cross between a paranoid pseudo-codebreaker gone awry, and a crazy genius who devised a mathematical approach for picking up women and then forgot all about it.

Russel Crowe may have been twice as credible if he didn't struggle to imitate Geoffrey Rush in Shine or Fred Gwynne as one of the Munsters. Well, Ok, I am over-analyzing. Jennifer Connelly does well to potray a doting wife, but the fact that his real-world wife had divorced Nash is totally ignored. For that matter, we're never even told that their son, also an ingenious math whiz and a schizophrenic, suffered as much at the hands of fate and society as his father.

Why was a more honest, less Hollywoodized depiction of the mathematician so difficult to manage? None of such facts would have lessened Nash's accomplishment or undermined the originality of his contributions, but their omission suggests that the director was not confident in addressing the audience as grown-ups.

If you know little about John Nash -- the troubled, violent, gifted mathematician -- this may come across as a very well made movie, as the numerous accolades it bagged may prove. But the film in its half-baked form is a bit of a gyp for anyone who knows a bit about the man and his much grander complexity. I still give it three stars for holding your attention, but I wonder if anyone would willingly watch it more than once.