A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind is about brilliant mathematician John Nash and his legendary life. The earnest thriller-cum-weepie starring Russell Crowe as a maths genius whose life is wracked by schizophrenia. A Beautiful Mind is stamped all over with ‘Hollywood prestige project’ and showered with awards.

Although the film leaves out the seedier elements of the real Nash’s life (divorce, cottage), it fashions a loose biopic that is by turns funny, exciting, sad and downright corny. The script, by Akiva Goldsman, (who also wrote the inexcusable Batman & Robin), is riddled with pithy, utterances that capture these shifting tones: there’s Nash’s description of himself: “I’m quite well balanced – I have a chip on both shoulders” – or the description his doctor, Rosen (Plummer), later uses to describes his disease to his wife: “The nightmare of schizophrenia is not knowing what’s true.”

Although it dallies with Cold War thriller elements, A Beautiful Mind is ultimately a formulaic tale of human perseverance, and merits comparisons with other, similar award-showered tales .As such, it’s an above-average weepie, a Hollywood prestige film that pre-packages the sufferings of one highly intelligent man and the woman who loves him to manipulate the emotions. Although the film itself is not as smart as it imagines itself to be, it’s certainly artful, with fine camera work by Roger Deakins (who shot the Coens’ stylish The Man Who Wasn’t There), and solid, thanks to Howard’s even-tempered direction.