Customer Reviews

Beautiful Mind [Blu-ray] [2001] [US Import]

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There's nothing that quite stirs the soul more than a true life story of courage, tragedy and love. In this film director Ron Howards puts to screen the story of Professor John Nash (Russell Crowe), a genius mathematician who with the help of his wife (Jennifer Connelly) overcomes his mental illness.

I did have doubts about the film when I first sat down to watch it, I thought it was going to be lots of tears followed by lots of friendly hugging, but Howard has directed a film that is well balanced letting the viewer have sympathy with Nash but also learn about mental illness in a scoiety that still struggles to fully understand what people like him are going through. Howard sets these questions while never getting too heavy into the politics and instead concentrates on the struggles of the characters involved.

The performances by all involved are truly stunning, Crowe plays Nash with a particular shyness which develops throughout the film from his days of graduation, to his (supposed) working life and then finally to his struggle to cope with his mental illness. Connelly plays a character that is equally as tormented as Nash, and who like him has to defend the love she really feels for him as both characters show similar courage.

It would be wrong to discuss Nash's mental illness without ruining half of the film, if you do not know what it is about then you would be surprised by the turn of events as Howard cleverly tricks the audience. However, this is not just a one time watch, whenever I have sat down to watch the film I have noticed small touches here and there. Though my favourite part of the film is towards the end when Nash day by day struggles to cope, the character development is superb and it is scandalous that Crowe was not awarded an Oscar for this performance, because in all honesty I don't think he will ever have a better performance as he did as Professor John Nash.

I first saw the film, not at the cinema, but when my parent's rented the DVD. My mother, at the time studying for a nursing degree, was encouraged to watch the film by one of her tutors, who apparently told her it was an "excellent portrayal of a schizophrenic mind". I think this is testimony to the skill with which Crowe, especially, plays brilliant but troubled mathematician John Nash.

The film garnered four Academy Awards, and, had it not been for the competition from the first of the Lord of the Rings films, this number would almost certainly have been larger. In particular, there is conjecture that Crowe's notorious bad-temper at an earlier ceremony cost him his award for best actor in a leading role. In my view, his portrayal of John Nash deserved the award, rather than Denzel Washington's appearance as a corrupt Narcotics cop in Training Day. Certainly, Crowe was spot on with the mannerisms and temperament of a schizophrenia sufferer, playing the part with a tension of volatility with was felt throughout the film.

Howard's direction was, as we have come to expect, wonderful. Indeed, it won him an Academy Award, a surprise, as many critics had tipped Peter Jackson to storm to victory that year. Howard draws brilliant performances from each of the cast, and, despite the dream-like nature of many of the sequences in the film, there's an almost heightened sense of realism.

There isn't a poor performance to pick. Each supporting actor and actress gives a smashing account of themselves. The sinister government agent in black suit and hat, who's name eludes me right now, is brilliant throughout. Nash's loyal colleague's Sol and Bender put in laudable shows. Admittedly, there's not much strenuous acting to be done, but they do whatever they have to do, and they do it well. However, one actress stands out - and for this she was awarded an Oscar for best actress in a supporting role. She gives a truly believable show as Alicia, Nash's wife, and, while it is difficult to see why she would want to marry Nash in the first place, her performance as the suffering but loyal friend is excellent. The connection between the two is brilliant and, at times, tear-inducing - a quality which I very much admire in a film.

There has been some criticism for screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman, for his depiction of Nash. It is true, that much of the more controversial points of Nash's life are omitted from the film (Nash's illegitmate child with another woman, cheating on his wife, being just one example) but the aim of the film, rather than being a biopic, is to demonstrate the strength of the human spirit. A Beautiful Mind shows that though Nash suffered from obstructive personality problems, and eventually mental illness, he was still an inspired thinker who won a Nobel Prize, and he still had a loving wife and son. Goldsman isn't trying to hide the bad aspects of Nash's character, they just don't contribute to the film's theme.

What's more, this film has an effect on the watcher. It does inspire and uplift. It shows us the strength and determination of some people to succeed. And it shows us how love is ultimately the driving force behind everything good that happens in the world.

I think, for this reason, A Beautiful Mind deserves all of the praise it gets, and if I had my way, it would get more.

Furthermore, it deserves five stars in this review. Buy it.

If you asked me before I had seen this film if I thought Russell Crowe was capable of acting this role, I would have had serious doubts. Now that I have seen it, I can only say that Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash is one of the most deserving of an Oscar that I have ever seen!

The film is based on the life of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who struggled with mental illness for much of his life. There is a large injection of fiction into the story, but it is done in a way that is wholly believable. As usual, Hollywood insists on adding a love story, but this one is not too sugary, and the excellent performance of Jennifer Connelly makes this a very moving film, with an ending that you spend the whole film hoping for.

Crowe's performance is so believable, especially when he is in the depths of his illness. The rest of the supporting cast do a fine job too, and Ron Howard's direction is the right balance of seeing the illness both from the inside and the outside.

A five star performance from Crowe!

A Beautiful Mind is Directed by Ron Howard, and stars Russell Crowe in a critically acclaimed performance as John Nash, a mathematical genius struggling to overcome schizophrenia, in this 'based on a true story', triumph over adversity tale.

Playing the mentally or physically ill has always been a fast-track to critical and Oscar success. Since 1945, approximately 20 actors and actresses have received Oscars for playing people with some sort of disability including most recently; Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man), Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot), Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman), Geoffrey Rush (Shine) and Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted). However, Russell Crowe narrowly (and somewhat controversially) missed out on his second Oscar even though A Beautiful Mind still triumphed on Oscar night winning Best Picture and Best Director at the 74th Annual Academy Awards.

Much debate still rumbles on as to whether or not Russell Crowe deserved to win his second Oscar and whether or not his ill-tempered display at the British Academy Awards cost him his second golden statuette. With this in mind I was intrigued to eventually dust down the DVD my wife had given me for Christmas and to cast a critical eye over this (in many ways) controversial movie.

First off, let me start by saying that if you already know that John Nash is/was schizophrenic (and lets face it who doesn't?) then the surprise (and indeed) suspense element of this movie is already spoilt. For it is then easy to guess from very early on in the movie that Russell Crowe's character may be hallucinating and experiencing paranoid delusions. Having studied mental illness and worked with people suffering from schizophrenia another major problem I found with 'A Beautiful Mind' is just how saccharine sweet it all is with the real difficulties of schizophrenia being somewhat diluted (if only it was that easy) in what is a very commercial film.

That said however, there are some very good things about A Beautiful Mind and Russell Crowe is at the centre of most of them. For it is his often understated and considered performance that makes A Beautiful Mind a very watchable movie and lifts it above your average Hollywood fare. Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly in particular also offer fine support and it is always a pleasure to see Ed Harris in pretty much any movie. To be fair, Ron Howard also directs this movie skilfully if somewhat by the numbers and Akiva Goldsman's screenplay builds an interesting if somewhat commercial plot, which would be fine if it were not so sugar-coated.

In summary, five stars should be awarded to Russell Crowe (and the rest of the cast) but otherwise this is a 3 star movie. Not bad, not brilliant, just typically Hollywood. Entertaining but not real life...

John Forbes Nash has the ability to see patterns in math and nature that are ordinarily overlooked. He presumably is pressed into using his ability for the government. Alicia comes into his world and as with many great loves, she sees what others call weird, as a cute uniqueness. We follow their courtship and then life together.

It is the little things and the interaction among friends that make the movie. This movie captures your attention from the beginning. You may be able to anticipate what is happening however it is not meant to be a dark secret with a twist ending as much as letting you in on what he is going through to survive. All the characters are fleshed out and you feel that you are there. This movie leaves a good after taste.

Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" is a tragic and inspiring masterwork that showcases one of the most impressive acting performances in recent memory. If there were still any lingering doubts as to the extent of Russell Crowe's acting prowess, this film dashed them all.

John Nash (Crowe) is a brilliant mathematician who makes an amazing breakthrough in his field while a student at Princeton. After graduating, he teaches at M.I.T. while working for the federal government as a code-breaker. He begins a relationship with a graduate student (Jennifer Connelly) and soon they are married and settled into a quiet domestic life. However, Nash soon starts to see patterns and associations of information everywhere and it is soon discovered that he is suffering from schizophrenia. Serious questions as to his perceptions of the real world, both in the past and in the present, must now be confronted.

Virtually all aspects of "A Beautiful Mind" work beautifully. Howard's confident direction and the strong lead performances by Crowe and Connelly is the glue that holds the entire production together. However, the important contributions made by supporting actors Paul Bettany, Ed Harris, and Christopher Plummer, composer James Horner, and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman should also be acknowledged. "A Beautiful Mind" furthermore deserves credit for not sentimentalizing Nash's struggle against mental illness. The darker aspects of his tortuous road to recovery are not avoided and are unflinchingly presented warts and all. It is a credit to Crowe's talent that we come to know John Nash so well and come to care so much for him. Nash's life is an amazing story and "A Beautiful Mind" is an amazing recounting of it.

Sorry this is more for your buying information rather than about the quality of the film or review of the film subject matter.

There are no special features, not one at all on this Blu-ray disc. Not the Commentary or deleted scenes from the DVD edition, not even a little extra for Blu-ray, you get the movie and that is about all.

You do get a choice of audio in:
Deutsch 5.1 Dolby Digital
English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Espanol 5.1 Dolby Digital
Francais 5.1 Dolby Digital
Italiano 5.1 Dolby Digital

Subtitles in: Dansk, Deutsch, English, Espanol, Francais, Italiano, Nederlands, Norsk, Suomi, Savenska, and English for the hearing impaired.

So decent choice for foreign language film viewers, not so good for movie buffs with no special features. Keep your DVD edition if you want more than just the film.

Imagine waking up in a mental hospital being told that the life you remember did not happen...

John Nash (Crowe) is a brilliant mathematician who has trouble relating to people. We follow him through his career, from the moment he sets foot in university to a climatic moment of his life.

When he starts teaching, someone approaches him and asks him to decode something. He is then drafted in a top secret project. One day he is apprehended and then he wakes up in a mental hospital.

Is he in the hands of the enemy or was the entire thing a delusion? The film keeps you guessing for a while.

Connelly excels as Nash's wife.

He was excellent as Maximus in Gladiator, but when he returns here he proves he is no one-hit wonder.

In this film, Crowe plays the character of John Nash, a real-life mathematician who also battled with schizophrenia. What gives the film an almost epic feel is that it begins with Nash entering college for the first time, and takes us all the way throughout his life at different stages. It draws you in, and adds a certain depth to the film.

What also works is the strong acting on display. Firstly, Russell Crowe is maginificent as John Nash, playing the part of the troubled genius with conviction and style, and the rest of the cast don't disappoint.

In short, one of the better films of the year.

This resulted in four well-deserved Academy Awards in 2002: Best Picture for Brian Grazer and the people at Imagine Entertainment, Ron Howard for his direction, Jennifer Connelly for her supporting role, and Akive Goldsman for his script adapted from Sylvia Nasar's biography. It is a beautiful and touching movie, uplifting and full of a lot of things that Hollywood does very well.

Russell Crowe is believable as the arrogant yet vulnerable mathematician John Nash who fell into paranoid schizophrenia while an undergraduate at Princeton University. A philandering and selfish man who is paradoxically almost as lovable as Albert Einstein, Nash can also be humble and exhibit a wry, self-effacing sense of humor. To me he is a great hero, not because of his work in Game Theory for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, but because he is one of the very few people ever to conquer, as it were, schizophrenia.

In the outstanding documentary from The American Experience PBS series, "A Brilliant Madness" (2002) Nash explains how he did it: he just stopped listening to the voices. The voices that the paranoid schizophrenic hears are inside his head and they are amazingly persuasive; the delusions are as compelling as monstrous personages come to life, vivid, demanding, in many ways more "real" than the reality we normally experience. So it really was heroic of John Nash to come to grips with his delusions and to mentally shove them aside. The vast majority of paranoid schizophrenics can never do that.

Yet the movie merely resembles his life and his singular experience. Goldsman's script and Howard's direction take the life of John Nash and distill the essence of his triumph while brushing aside many of the unpleasant and non-heroic details. I don't object to this because this movie is clearly aimed at the widest possible audience, and I appreciate the wisdom of that approach. But for those of you interested in a more comprehensive and objective picture of the man I can recommend both the documentary mentioned above and Nasar's biography. I especially found it valuable to view the one-hour documentary because to actually see the man and to hear him speak allowed me to better appreciate the fine performance by Russell Crowe.

I found Jennifer Connelly absolutely mesmerizing as Alicia (not to mention gorgeous). Ed Harris was a hardcore graphic nightmare as the unrelenting Parcher while Paul Bettany was intriguing and clever as Nash's nonexistent buddy. Howard's direction not only got excellent work from everybody, but he was able to bring the pathos and exhilaration of Nash's life to the audience in a very satisfying way emotionally. If you can watch this without shedding a tear or two you may want to check your synaptic connections. Incidentally the makeup work on Crowe and Connelly to allow us the illusion of the passing years was outstanding (and got an Oscar nomination).

The key to the movie and to Howard's vision is the way that the real world and the Nash's delusional world are meshed. It's clear he wanted to compel the audience to share the paranoid schizophrenic experience. While not a paranoid schizophrenic myself I have known people who are, and I have had similar, limited experiences myself under certain, shall we say, circumstances. The sheer terror that can sometimes be felt came through in the car chase scene (yes, Howard managed to get one in) while Nash's obsessive energy was revealed on the walls of the rooms that he had completely covered with pages from magazines that he had frantically searched looking for secret Soviet codes.

Some quibbles: while undergraduates loved beer then as they do now, they did not in 1946 go out for pizza, and if they had they would have called it "pizza pie." There were no pizza parlors and no pizza at the market. If you went to an Italian restaurant you had spaghetti or ravioli, and the pizza that was served was mostly bread with a thin topping of cheese and sauce, nothing like the great thin platters we have today.

New Zealander Russell Crowe's West Virginia accent faded in some scenes only to return strong in another.

Also, no mention in the movie is made of Nash's homosexual experiences nor of his running away to Europe or his desire to renounce his US citizenship. I understand that Howard decided to leave out the homosexual angle because associating homosexuality with schizophrenia would open a can of worms that would detract from the theme of the movie. Also left out was Nash's other paternity with a woman he never married.

Nash is not a saint, but he is a hero, and this beautiful movie is a fine tribute to him and his accomplishments.