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Russell
Crowe as John Forbes Nash Jr.
Russell
Crowe as John Forbes Nash Jr. and Jennifer Connelly as Alicia Larde
Russell
Crowe as John Forbes Nash Jr.
Christopher
Plummer as Dr. Rosen
Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures
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By
C. Antonio Romero
NEW YORK, 19 March 2002
- A Beautiful Mind is in many respects a first-rate film--
certainly one of the best Hollywood produced in the last year. But can
its dead-on execution make up for its shortcomings?
Before
digging in too deep, though, it's important to be fair, and point out
what the movie does do well. First of all, there's Russell Crowe's
performance in a difficult role. Here, Crowe has finally lived up to
the hype that's been spouted about him in the last few years, since
his supporting work behind Guy Pearce in L.A. Confidential and
his frankly mystifying nomination for his solid but unremarkable work
in The Insider. As played by Crowe, Nash is brilliant,
arrogant, often frustrated, self-conscious among Princeton's
bluebloods because of his lower-class West Virginia origins, and a few
notches past eccentric, Crowe is entirely believable during the period
before his breakdown; and in the years where Nash's schizophrenia
finally mostly demolishes his outward life, he conveys the
deterioration of a once-vigorous mind and body perfectly, even
faithfully capturing the air and physical mannerisms of the Nash who
in his later years, nicknamed "The Phantom," haunted the
Princeton campus, unrecognized even by many of the students whose work
he made possible. (If Crowe simply isn't boyish enough to pass for a
young man of 20, and a little too physically robust to play a frail
Nash in his 70's, he can't be faulted for those things.)
The
supporting players also turn in solid performances surrounding Crowe's
standout work. Jennifer Connelly does fine work as Nash's devoted wife
Alicia Larde, who falls for the thorny, ecccentric hunk of
mathematical manhood (appreciating his finer qualities despite his
awkward exterior), then stands by him through his decline and
miraculous recovery. (If at times Alicia and Nash's romance seems a
little psychologically unreal, chalk it up to Ron Howard trying to
portray the brilliant as a little different from us everyday folks;
and once things sour, they're actually much more believable.) Ed
Harris's work as William Parcher, Nash's slave-driving spymaster full
of secrets, is a bit one-note, but that's how the role is written, and
makes sense in context; and likewise, Paul Bettany as English grad
student and Nash's roommate Charles Herman is suitably charming and a
good foil for Nash when he's most absorbed in his mathematics. Indeed,
Ron Howard coaxes good performance across the board from his cast.
So what's wrong? The first objection, to be petty, is the
gulf between this movie and the story of John Nash. While quite a few
names and locations have been preserved, most of the particulars are
pure fiction. Nash's actual mathematical insight is hinted at (in a
clever scene that reduces it all to a scheme for getting the maximum
number of people laid on Saturday night) but not explored in any
depth. This is disappointing, but not unexpected. The outright
omissions are huge. What of the rumors suggesting Nash's possible
homosexuality? What of the arrest for indecent exposure after an
encounter in a Venice Beach men's room, that ended his tenure at the
Rand Corporation? (What of his tenure at the Rand Corporation, for
that matter?) What of his divorce from Alicia, the good woman whose
love sustains him in this film? (Granted, Alicia moved back in with
him about seven years after the divorce, and lived with him for
decades before they remarried.) What of his illegitimate child, from a
liaison that predated Alicia? An attempt to renounce his U.S.
citizenship during a trip to Europe? The actual content of Nash's
delusions, as opposed to the clever but completely inauthentic (and
implausible) delusions we see here?
If it were a mere
whitewash, leaving off unseemly details to make Nash a more
sympathetic character, this might be more reprehensible. But Howard
seems to be up to something else here-- creating, essentially, an
moving, pleasing, entertaining fiction inspired by, rather than based
on, the life of John Nash. Is it his fault that, even as the book
sells briskly, most viewers of the film probably never manage to plow
through it, and may not realize just how much of a fiction the film
is? (After all, in spite of what the bestseller lists said, how many
people actually made it through Stephen Hawking's A Brief History
of Time?) Is Howard's job really to prepare people for a pop-quiz
on Nash's life and work? It would be nice if the real story could have
been committed to film, but Howard's stooped no lower than most biopic
makers in leaving out the difficult details.
The second
issue, actually, is probably the one the film should be indicted for:
what they added, after they stripped out all the weird bits of John
Nash, and, more importantly, why. As well-executed and clever as the
film is, its ambitions turn out to be awfully pedestrian. Nash's
paranoid delusions are given a perfectly reasonable-seeming form, at
least up to a point, where in fact they would have seemed bizarre on
their face to anyone not in the grips of mental illness (though this
might be useful, as it helps the audience grasp just how surprised
someone delusional must be when they realize how completely out of
step with reality they are). Finally, and most importantly, we see
severe mental illness reduced to something best treated by a brilliant
man reasoning his way through the breakdown of his own mind, and
buttressed by the love of a good woman. (The insulin-shock treatment
for schizophrenia was certainly rough on the patient, but did offer
Nash some benefit.) Alicia's loyalty to her husband and Nash's ability
to eventually get a grip on his disorder through her love and his own
reason are uplifting, gratifying, inspiring, even if they are false.
What matters is that we've let ourselves be manipulated by
yet another Hollywood product, albeit one more slick and well-crafted
than most. Ron Howard has served us up a perfect emotional cocktail--
we're awestruck by genius, thrilled by an unfolding spy drama, touched
by mental illness, uplifted by the poer of love-- all on schedule.
Howard's technique is impeccable, but his aims are ultimately
unambitious: he wants to jerk our heartstrings and jangle our
adrenaline in all-too-familiar ways. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman has
created the perfect blending of some superficial details of Nash's
life and the expectations we've all formed through watching
generations of Hollywood movies, to let Howard achieve the desired
effect. A good example: the quirky pen ritual by which Princeton
faculty supposedly show respect for their honored colleagues. Ivy
League institutions are a black box to most people, but, it is
generally believed, they have quirky and archaic rituals-- so if the
writer just invents something that fits well with the locations
available for the shoot and people's expectations, who'll know the
difference? It's not Princeton, but it is the Princeton that Hollywood
has taught us to expect. The only unexpected thing the movie does, in
fact, is revealing at a certain moment that some elements of the
action to that point are delusional-- and this is not so much brave as
clever. Wouldn't it be nobler or braver for a filmmaker to take on the
real story of John Nash, with more of its complex ideas and
objectionable facets intact?
As well-crafted as it is, it's
impossible to not give A Beautiful Mind its due, with at least
a three-star rating. But between its falsehoods, its predictability
and its lacking the courage to take on Nash's real story, it's
imposible to give anything more.
Three stars.
Related:
Nash's
brief autobiography for the Nobel Prize:
News
story from Daily Princetonian on inaccuracies in the film
C. Antonio Romero received a
Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science from Princeton University in 1987. Professor Nash in his
'Phantom' period was a fixture of the Princeton campus during Mr.
Romero's years there.
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Cinema Reviews
