Review of A Beautiful Mind (2001) by Katrina K — 27 Aug 2011

"A Beautiful Mind" is a great drama. It's based on the true story of John Nash, a brilliant mathemetician on the brink of international acclaim and success until he is visited by a man identifying himself as William Parcher, a federal agent who wants to recruit him to crack codes from Russian spies bent on destroying the United States. But it turns out that Nash is actually suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and has been doing so for years. Even his best friend/ex-roommate, Charles, is nothing more than a creation of his imagination. Nash's gorgeous and devoted wife, Alicia, shows the true meaning of the marriage vow line "in sickness and in health". Frustrated and afraid, she still loves and sticks by her husband through his tumultuous mental issues and is the reason Nash really becomes who he becomes.

The acting is pretty superb. Jennifer Connelly is believable as Alicia, but I do have a hard time seeing how she'd find a guy like John Nash attractive enough to ask him out. He's smug, dismissive of others, and unkempt-- his fingernails are creepily long. John Nash is socially inept, odd, and amazingly arrogant about his own abilities but Russell Crowe actually manages to make that twitchiness a mildly endearing attribute. Endearing enough to make you root for Nash's recovery and success, and actually begin to hate the figments of his imagination (Charles, Parcher, even little Marcee) that threaten to bring him down.

"A Beautiful Mind" is both funny and sad, and an intriguing story of the willpower of one man to overcome his debilitating mental illness to become a renowned Nobel Prize winner.