The Academy has a great history of awarding the Best
Picture Oscar to a generally lifeless, inoffensive work of
mediocrity. I can hardly say that A
Beautiful Mind is not a good movie (I regrettably put it on my top ten list
for 2001), but it certainly isn’t great. It’s not even particularly memorable
except in its simplistic depiction of mental illness.
I can’t say with any certainty to what degree John Nash
suffered with schizophrenia or how it manifested itself, but I do know that the
way Akiva Goldsman incorporates it into his screenplay, based on the biography
by Sylvia Nasar, seems almost preposterous, designed specifically to aid the
unsubtle viewer in understanding what Nash was going through. I guess I
shouldn’t fault the movie for trying to reach a broader audience, but nor
should we assume that it has anything new or interesting to say on the subject.
The real John Nash is a Nobel prize-winning mathematician
who specializes in game theory that has found applications in the field of
economics. Sometime during his studies at Princeton his illness became manifest
and he became paranoid delusional. As the movie, directed by Ron Howard, tells
it, he secures a job doing some minor code work for a government lab, but in
his mind he is selected for a top secret mission to protect the United States
from a Soviet infiltration of small-device nuclear weapons. Ed Harris plays the
shadow agent who gives him assignments and turns out to be quite fictional
indeed. Everything unbelievable in the movie turns out to be in Nash’s mind.
Goldsman focuses the story within two contexts: Nash as
he views himself and his delusions which he believes are real; and his wife
Alicia’s (Jennifer Connelly) reaction to his mental state and subsequent heroic
attempt to live with it even while their life is crumbling as a result. The
real Mr. and Mrs. Nash divorced, but the movie excises that particular plot
point as being unsuitable to the narrative of the loving, supportive,
rock-solidly devoted wife who refused to give up. It also leaves out some other
details like Nash’s illegitimate child conceived prior to his marriage, and the
fact of Alicia being a Salvadoran immigrant. I guess producer Brian Grazer felt
the beautiful and fair-skinned Connelly was a better box office draw than a
Hispanic actress would have been, never mind the facts.
Adam Goldberg and Anthony Rapp play Princeton classmates
and friends of his who follow him professionally and try to cover for him when
he seems to become mentally imbalanced. Paul Bettany is his roommate and
lifelong confidant, who never seems to age and whom no one else ever interacts
with. Josh Lucas is his arrogant genius rival, the good-looking suave flip side
to Nash the introverted, slightly creepy guy who lurks and chases pigeons.
Small but significant roles are filled by Judd Hirsch as Nash’s mentor and
professor at Princeton and Christopher Plummer as the first doctor who attempts
to treat him for mental illness. It’s Crowe’s performance that drives the
movie. He is the star of the show without a doubt and it’s clear he did his
homework and put his all into his portrayal of the troubled mathematician. It’s
funny watching it more than a decade later and long after everyone has stopped
talking about it, but so much of Crowe’s acting appears very mannered now. Time
has not been entirely kind to this film.
It’s generally emotionally affecting at its core, which
is the relationship between John and Alicia. However, the film might have done
better to have a little more grit and strife between the two. How difficult it must
be for someone to have to live with a man who is suffering such a calamitous
illness. And at that, mental illness is so incredibly difficult for those not
afflicted to truly understand. I’ve just recently revisited Good
Will Hunting, a film whose story originally had a plot that relied
heavily on the main character getting involved in government work and code
breaking. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were advised to drop that subplot in favor
of focusing on the relationships that Will has to his friends and therapist. I
think that same advice might have been aptly applied here. Goldsman would have
produced more humanly interesting work had his story spent more time on the
ways John Nash’s illness destroyed his marriage and the strain it must have put
on his professional relationships rather than try to get into his head for a
subplot that, while I understand it plays out in his mind, is Hollywood
thriller boilerplate. It comes across as a cheap cash in, something easier to
sell as an exciting holiday movie. Exciting enough to draw the masses while
also being serious enough to garner awards consideration. It paid off, I guess,
so they were right in the end. Still, I would have preferred a better movie.
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