A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Ron Howard’s “A Beautiful Mind” is another good, but not great, film that somehow landed a bookcase full of Academy Awards. I can see it: It’s a harsh, but feel-good movie about a genius math professor (Russell Crowe) married to a stunning beauty (Jennifer Connelly), but thrown under the train of life by a horrific disease (Schizophrenia). Fictionalizing the complicated, not-romantic biography, “Mind” follows socially inept John Nash, the guy under the train who becomes lost to paranoia, visions and delusions of grandeur – that he, Nash, is a top secret Cold War spy. The cast is perfect, especially Crowe, who preens with striking intelligence in one scene and drowns in utter confusion and despondency during the next. Yet, the screenplay (by Akiva Goldsman) gets lost in sentimentality (a climatic speech, a heart-to-heart talk with open palms). As well, it drags out the delusion scenes long past credibility, and makes them too literal. Yet, it’s rarely dull, always looking deep into the eyes of its actors. It’s not high art. It was made as Oscar bait and succeeded. B