ViewGuide

Created May 03, 2009 05:45PM PST • Edited May 20, 2016 12:57AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Deeply affecting, intellectually engaging, and terrifically charismatic, A Beautiful Mind established Russell Crowe as an uncommonly talented movie star while also serving as a showcase for director Ron Howard, co-star Jennifer Connelly and everyone else involved with this Oscar-dominating production.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Jennifer Connelly won the Acting Oscar, but it’s Russell Crowe’s performance that dazzles. At times internal, often ravingly external, he delivers a performance of great depth and sympathy, and one that ages from young man to elderly eminence. Already a megastar due to Gladiator, which came out a year earlier, Crowe proved himself an actor of uncommon range as John Nash, the possessor of a beautiful mind.

   Connelly’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar was hardly undeserved, though her role as the strong yet long suffering spouse is rather formulaic compared to that of the schizophrenic to whom she finds herself bound. Connelly’s trademark beautiful intelligence serves her well, ensuring that she ably stands up to Crowe’s power and brilliance.

   Paul Bettany, the great Ed Harris, and Josh Lucas stand out amongst the strong supporting cast.

   • Bettany as the wild eyed and then supportive roommate¹
   • Harris as the mysterious and dangerous DoD handler
   • Lucas as Nash’s early rival and later patron.

   Others delivering distinctive turns include Adam Goldberg, Christopher Plummer and Judd Hirsch.
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   ¹ Bettany and Connelly married in 2003. Perhaps they met while filming A Beautiful Mind?

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Deserving of its acclaim, 2002’s Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscar winner first appears to be a charismatic story about an odd genius, then reveals a multi-leveled mystery, before resolving itself as a triumph of the human condition. Best Picture indeed. Along the way, it manages to teach a bit about schizophrenia and game theory.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Ron Howard, bravo!

12. Play Great 4.0

    Akiva Goldsman’s Oscar winning screenplay takes huge liberties with the reality of Nash’s story. So what. It works, and teaches more than a little bit about Nash’s mental illness and intellectual contributions.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Nash’s visualizations – from star patterns to schizophrenic delusions – are brilliantly wrought. Plus, the Ivy League glory of the Princeton campus is lovingly shown.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.4

    Scenes of Nash being hauled away for psychiatric hospitalization and then subjected to insulin shock therapy are more than a little disturbing.

17. Sex Innocent 1.3

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Polite 1.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

    Heavily Hollywood-ized, the movie “is true to the spirit of Nash’s story,” according to Sylvia Nasar, the author of the book from which the movie was derived.¹

    Apparently Nash’s hallucinations were purely auditory, not visual as the movie shows them. Further, most of the characters in the movie are amalgamations of real people. Additional fictions include the fact that Nash apparently swore off psychiatric meds after 1970, contrary to the story painted by the movie, while the movie’s professorial pen ceremony is a complete cinematic invention.

    So be it. Hollywood will always be in the “truthiness” business, no matter the subject.
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    ¹ Source: Wikipedia

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Glib 1.3

24. Physical Natural 1.0