A Beautiful Mind

Year: 2001

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Howard

Review

in my continuing quest to watch all the best picture winners i saw this one the other day. spoilers to come…pretty good flick all around and explores an important subject which is generally swept under the rug: mental illness. john nash is a paranoid schizophrenic who is also a brilliant mathematician. if not for that last part (and his amazingly patient wife [played by one of the top five beauties to hit the screen – jennifer connelly]), he’d be just another bum on the corner of telegraph and haste yelling to himself and begging for change. it’s a bit long in the tooth, but it doesn’t play as overly drawn out. it’s easy to dismiss a film like this if you haven’t seen it, but watch it, experience the pain of the nash family, and be impressed by crowe’s performance – then make a judgment. all that said, it wasn’t the best film of the year. then again, the best picture winner hardly ever is. and, i actually would have given crowe the best actor nod over denzel here. that was a make up call, though, just like the departed for scorsese and scent of a woman for pacino and so many others…

Watched on TV