00s Movie Review - A Beautiful Mind

Director: Ron Howard
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 135 minutes
Year: 2001
Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany, Christopher Plummer, Judd Hirsch, Josh Lucas, Adam Goldberg

Description: After a brilliant but asocial mathematician, John Nash (Russell Crowe), accepts secret work in cryptography, his life takes a turn for the nightmarish.

Review: It’s not easy being a genius mathematician, when even the most simple decision become the most complicated formulas. John Nash is someone like that. Nobel Prize winner John Nash allowed Ron Howard to make a film about his life. Lead actor Russell Crowe met John Nash. “A Beautiful Mind” was very successful at the Academy Awards that year, it won for best movie, director and script, but just missed out on best actor. In my opinion it’s Russell Crowe’s best performance so far and he should have definitely won the award.

“A Beautiful Mind” doesn’t only focus on him as a genius, but also his schizophrenia. We meet Nash in his college years at Princeton, where he is seen as a weird guy. He doesn’t attend classes, because he can’t learn anything there and he has other things on his mind. His days are spend trying to solve formulas, which results in a controversial thesis. But while he lives his life in the world of numbers and formulas, his paranoia grows. Nash gets delusions and is convinced the government has hired him to solve codes to find the location of an atomic bomb. His wife Alicia has no idea how to deal with it.

 
“A Beautiful Mind” is Russell Crowe at his best. He portrays John Nash so convincingly and realistic. As a mathematician testing theories and as a man fighting his inner demons. But the woman on his side, Jennifer Connelly, also shines. As Alicia Nash she portrays her sublimely, as a woman who both loves and fears her husband. Connelly won for best supporting actress, which was well deserved. Crowe and Connelly are supported by great actors Ed Harris, Paul Bettany and Christopher Plummer. But it’s the script by Akiva Goldsmith that makes this movie truly memorable. Goldsmith takes the viewers into the mind of Nash, while the truth is still hidden until a certain point, to show us how Nash sees the world.

Strong acting and a great script. “A Beautiful Mind” is a perfect film, with both Crowe and Connelly at their best. Well directed by Ron Howard and his best movie so far.

Rating: 5/ 5