 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
|
 email this review to a friend
A Beautiful Mind (2001) shows the incredible power of the human spirit, the remarkable triumph of love, and the beautiful wonder of passion. To ensure maximum enjoyment for those yet to view this film and for those who are yet to read this book, I will not divulge here the critical climax that will connect the audience to the main theme of this movie. This will preserve the deliberate intent of Director Ron Howard while maintaining the exciting unforeseen. As such, I will only say that this is a biographical movie portraying Dr. John Nash (Russell Crowe), a brilliant mathematician. The film story spans several decades and takes the audience from his early years at Princeton University to ultimately receiving the Nobel Prize in economics. As a hopeless romantic, one particular scene that stands out in my mind is where Nash and his future wife are looking at the stars. He asks her to tell him the first shape or animal that comes to her mind. From this, he is able to look at the night sky, with its millions of stars, and while holding her index finger in his hand, he is able to find and trace the image she discloses. I wish there were more unique scenes like this and certainly I would have enjoyed more insight into Nash's family and childhood. From a production standpoint, makeup deserves a special note which appropriately and realistically ages the characters as the movie progresses through four decades. Likewise, I think the artistic recreation does a fine job rendering four distinct decades of the times convincingly matching clothing, props, and sets. Ron Howard does an outstanding job directing this film. Yet, with all the fine production values, this film excels most in the acting. Russell Crowe turns in a career performance. His character is the exact opposite of the Russell Crowe I have come to expect. Instead of strong, tough and balanced, with a sharp worldly intelligence, he plays an eccentric and convoluted man with quirks, nervous habits and a severe problem. Crowe completely immerses himself in the enormous volume of the role, effortlessly moving between its elements from audacity to fearfulness and from tenderness to genius. I think this is a triumph that is beyond his Academy Award performance in Gladiator (2000). Although Jennifer Connoly was very impressive in her role as Mrs. Alicia Nash, I wish the movie had examined her struggles with her husband in more detail. The real Alicia Nash and her sacrifices were unfortunately given short life in the film. Regardless, Connelly received an Oscar for best supporting actress. It is always difficult to avoid getting lost in the presence of a powerful actor as Crowe, but Connelly stays right with him delivering a wonderfully moving performance as the steadfast wife. The supporting cast, featuring Ed Harris, Christopher Plummer, Adam Goldberg, and Paul Bettany is also magnificent. Just as a side note, the "Nash Equilibrium" constructs a notion of equilibrium in which a complex chain of thinking about thinking could converge. Then the strategies of all players would be mutually consistent in the sense that each would be choosing his or her best response to the choices of the others. For an assumption to be useful in game theory, however, the equilibrium it suggests should be proven. Dr. John Nash used novel mathematical techniques to prove the existence of equilibrium in a very general class of games. This paved the way for numerous applications in a variety of fields. Although Dr. Nash shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics with other theorists, social biologists have used the notion of "Nash Equilibrium" in game theory to formulate the idea of evolutionary stability long before economists applied these concepts. In the summer of 1986, I had the honor of attending a social biology conference in which Dr. Nash was a presenter in a breakout workshop. After this brief meeting, I can say that Ron Howard does a remarkable job painting this man's life journey on the big screen. The surreal effects and scenes make this movie more dramatic and cohesive than historically accurate, but I think it succeeds in both informing and entertaining most audiences. In fact, the power and emotion of this film is overwhelming at times. The story captures you from the start while gently rapping its hand around your heart and keeping you in thrall as you follow the traumatic downhill spiraling and brilliance of genius. This movie is a very worthy of its Academy Award for Best Picture. This DVD version belongs in every serious film collector's movie library. It also belongs in every family collection because of the powerful message it delivers in touching our humanity and explaining why we have achieved what we have and the importance of hope in our continued survival. Finally, this film provides us with a rarity found in movies today – an academic a hero. And I think we do need so much more of them in our lives. email this review to a friend
Comment on this Review:
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
RSS | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | About MatchFlick® | Press | Contact Us | FAQs
Partnership and Advertising Opportunities | Movie Database | Merchandise ©2004-2009 MatchFlick®. All rights reserved. ©MOVIE IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTED AND THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS |