A Beautiful Mind (Full Screen Awards Edition)

A Beautiful Mind (Full Screen Awards Edition)
by Ron Howard

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DVD Reviews of A Beautiful Mind (Full Screen Awards Edition)

DVD Review: Good Performances, Thin Script
Summary: 3 Stars

Frankly, neither John Nash, nor his mind, are in the tiniest sense made "beautiful" by this film. The man, an eccentric genius laid low by paranoid schizophrenia, is sympathetic only in the sense that one might feel sympathy for anyone who is mentally ill. Sure, it's sort of interesting that he eventually won the Nobel Prize Winner for his mathematic theories but when the film tries to explain those theories, the viewer gets only the most rudimentary insight into what must really be a fascinating, somehow mathematically based, theory of economics and human nature. Naturally, the script writers assumed that most viewers wouldn't be interested in anything more than third grade arithmetic, and leave it to Nash to scribble heiroglyphic equations on windows, blackboards, and anything else he gets his hands on to show how "complex" his theories must be without really attempting to explain how they work.

The same holds true for his mental disease. Most psychiatrists attribute the development of severe mental illness, such as paranoid schizophrenia, to a combination of genetic (family history) and environmental (infant/childhood trauma) factors. This film discloses nothing about this man's life prior to graduate school. He simply acquires his mental illness without any explanation, whatsoever. The audience is supposed to swoon with sympathy for his plight and, in fact, based on the film's box office (and the Academy), apparently, a lot of folks apparently found Crowe's performance affecting. Indeed, it is to Crowe's everlasting credit that he made the character he played into someone to whom audiences could relate.

Once again, though, one is left wanting to know more. Why did Nash create the imaginary characters that populate his diseased mind? One can, given the times (mid 1950's) imagine why an anti-communist operative (played wonderfully by Ed Harris) is one of his spectres, but why the gregarious room-mate, and (especially) why the room-mate's young adoptive daughter? What in Nash's past, if anything, prompt these denizens to constantly plague his life? No clue is given.

I suppose the real goals of this film were: (i) show what it really "must be like" to be trapped in a paranoid delusion, and (ii) avoid being to be too much like a documentary on Nash's life. In other words, "entertainment" - not insight - was the operative goal. But haven't we all been down this road at least two dozen times? From the manipulative recent (and decent) "Sixth Sense" all the way back to Boris Karloff, we've all been duped by Hollywood trickery into believing one set of assumptions until a dopey mutt pulls the curtain and reveals the Wizard to be an old putz. It's the same with this film: is he a schizo, or isn't he? Of course, this film is based on a real guy so you have to assume he IS a schizo from scene one. Still, we audiences love getting that curtain pulled. Sad, isn't it, that the Academy, and the American public, still gape over the same recycled bilge. Gosh, now I know what it REALLY must be like to be paranoid. These crazy M.O.'s really BELIEVE their delusions! For a awhile there, even I believed it! Whoah!

In other words, this movie is pure HOLLWOOD. Take it for what it is.

OK, "A Beatiful Mind" is a beautifully filmed and scored movie, and the performances are truly solid. What fails is the script, which relies on the same, tired Hollywood formula and truly fails to inform us in any meaningful way about John Nash, his theories, or his demons.

Description of A Beautiful Mind (Full Screen Awards Edition)