A Beautiful Mind Reviewed

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

A Beautiful Mind

     Wintertime, and the livin’ ain’t easy, at least, if you’re a film critic and you are getting swamped with the end of year glut of films and performances that the studios want us to consider memorable (but, they wait till the end of the year to release them, so we’ll be sure to remember them when it’s time for vote for the various awards). We’re gunning for some real Oscar® bait, and, hey, what have we here, in A Beautiful Mind? Aussie hunk, one time Meg-Ryan main squeeze, and last year’s Best Actor winner (a nominee the previous year), laying on a bit of cone-pone in his speech and, oh, dear, suffering from a psychiatric disorder.
By the way, Dr. John Forbes Nash Jr., the real still live Nobel laureate upon whose life this flick is based, is bisexual and got into some trouble involving an experience in a public restroom, apparently a significant event in his professional and personal life, but Ron Howard (whose films still smack a little of his Opie role in The Andy Griffith Show—yep, I agree, that is a cheap shot) makes nary a mention of such less than beautiful goings-on. It’s not as if we are talking about whether or not he refuses to go to covered-dish suppers or never misses an I Love Lucy rerun. We are talking about the omission of a vital part of his personality, his life story, and the relationship with his wife, which is so central to this film.
     The film (and, assumedly, the good doctor’s life) boils down to a neat three-act structure: boy genius, middle-aged schizophrenic, and senior survivor. There is a strong narrative drive which keeps the film moving lightly through its paces and its five decades, perhaps a bit too lightly, with hallucinations a little too pretty, for my tastes.
>My problem is with Russell Crowe, and if you have a problem with Russell Crowe, you have a problem with this film. Think Erin Brockovich/Julia Roberts, and you get the idea. For me, at least, Crowe battling armed men in an arena was more believable than Crowe battling monsters inside his own skull or translating the flight of birds into numerical sequences. Crowe’s rather stagy style of acting with standardized, rather oversized gestures worked for his creation of Maximus but against his work on the current assignment.
     I’ll admit that near the end of a dreadful year, A Beautiful Mind is on the upper half of my list of movies. That is rather faint praise, although that really doesn’t matter. Howard and Crowe have conspired to give us a film that just, doggone it, feels good enough to slide comfortably into any number of nominations, ten-best lists, and other frippery with which we movie commentators busy ourselves this time of year.
This time, I think the public will agree with us, for much the same reason that Frasier is such a hit on television. We like to see two highly-educated guys, both psychiatrists, who can’t get through a day or sustain a relationship, and many of us will be reassured to know that a guy who can win a Nobel Prize is less successful than we are at ventures that we undertake. Keep your feet dry, your heart full of noble thoughts, and your mind as beautiful as you can make it. Frankly, A Beautiful Mind, despite my reservations is a not ugly way to pass an evening.

POPCORN

If you’ve ever known someone with schizophrenia or even with a family member suffering from schizophrenia, you know that it is a terrible, terrible disease. To learn more about this disease that is as baffling in its causes as in its effects, check out Schizophrenia.com. An overview of the home page indicates the thoroughness of the site: Main Message Board, People Diagnosed with Schizophrenia, Parents, Spouses, Offspring, Brothers/Sisters, Childhood Schizophrenia; Introduction, Causes, Diagnosis, Medications, Success Stories, Support Groups, Managing Depression, Preventing Suicide, Getting Financial Support, Assisted/Involuntary Treatment: Family and Friends, People Diagnosed with Schizophrenia, Researchers and Professionals, Students. As intriguing as it was for someone with just an intellectual interest, this page, I am sure, would be extremely helpful to someone who for whom schizophrenia is a daily presence.