Certification. 12
Running Time. 2 hours 15 mins
Director. Ron Howard
Cast. Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Russell Crowe, Adam Goldberg, Ed Harris, Judd Hirsch, Josh Lucas, Christopher Plummer.
Rating. 76%
A Beautiful Mind was inspired by one of America's most brilliant mathematicians, John Nash. In 1994, John Nash was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on games theory - research he carried out 50 years earlier as a student at Princeton University. Highly embellished and severely sanitised, the film bears only a passing resemblance to Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind.
John Nash (Russell Crowe) was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but A Beautiful Mind is not a film about mental illness. A Beautiful Mind is a film about John Nash, his relationships and his daily struggle with schizophrenia. The result is one of the most sympathetic depictions of mental illness of its time. A Beautiful Mind did not intend to rival the claustrophobic complexity of the likes of Repulsion, Donnie Darko or Spider. The latter two films were released within 12 months of A Beautiful Mind.
I'm not sure A Beautiful Mind merited the Best Picture Academy Award in a year that saw Gosford Park, Black Hawk Down, Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring, Moulin Rouge! and Amelie released. But Jennifer Connelly certainly merited the Best Supporting Actress Award. Her portrayal of John Nash's wife, Alicia may seem innocuous and low-key compared to many histrionic Academy Award-winning performances. Despite a woefully underwritten role, Jennifer Connelly dominates the screen with an innate ability to convey emotion with a fleeting glance, a subtle gesture or a single word. Dynamite.
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