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| Genre: | Drama |
| Year: | 2001 |
| Rating: | PG13 |
| Length: | 2h 16mins |
| Cast: | Ron Howard, Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris |
Based on Sylvia Nasar's bestselling biography of John Forbes Nash Jr., the MIT mathematician who successfully conquered mental illness and went on to win a Nobel Prize, A Beautiful Mind is a gripping melodrama with a whopper of a Sixth Sense-style twist. We first meet Nash, played by Russell Crowe, in 1947, when he is still a brilliant but highly eccentric and socially awkward mathematics student at Princeton. His remarkable work on game theory eventually lands him a position at MIT, where he meets both his wife, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly), and a sinister CIA agent (Ed Harris) who recruits him as a code breaker for the Defense Department. Director Ron Howard, who employs some clever narrative devices that allow the audience to see the world from Nash's perspective, shows how Cold War paranoia feeds and shapes his developing schizophrenia. The depiction of Nash's battle to banish his voices -- not through debilitating drugs but by simply refusing to listen to them -- poignantly conveys the sadness and isolation of mental illness. Crowe is as compelling as ever, but it is Connelly who is the real revelation here. Her Oscar-winning turn as the gorgeous young wife who stands by Nash through it all, weathering violent episodes and medication-induced impotence, is touching and impressively grounded. The truth of Nash's life is, at least as revealed in Nasar's book, less tidy than what we see on screen. Howard and Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman excised all sorts of unsavory details, and the result is Hollywood myth making at its most unabashed (complete with a heavy-handed score that telegraphs every emotion). Yet, there is no denying the emotional and inspirational power that earned A Beautiful Mind Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Director: It is an inspiring portrait of a gifted man, an extraordinary woman, and a remarkable triumph. Kryssa Schemmerling
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