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Russell Crowe, in the most Oscar-worthy performance of his career, plays John Nash, an eccentric and yet respected mathematician-in-training at Princeton University. He’s subsequently being told that he, along with the others in his class, is the future of modernization – mathematicians, after all, built the atomic bomb and won World War II. However, Nash is nonverbally labeled as different right in the beginning moments of the film. He basically has larger plans for himself.
His roommate is almost nothing like him (he goes out on the town, gets drunk, doesn’t care), but they have a somewhat stable relationship as friends, which grows as the film progresses. Actually, he even helps John with his state of mind and some of his work. John’s thesis gets him a job with the Pentagon, working to find out where the Russians are planning to detonate a nuclear weapon in the United States. Consequently, he begins to break down mentally.
John meets Alicia; they fall in love and get married, against all odds opposing John’s oddities. Jennifer Connelly gives a passionate and extremely effective portrayal of John’s other half (no pun intended, for those of you who have seen this). And this is why...
For fear of angering readers who have yet to see the film, I won’t tell you a large plot change that happens in the film. But I will tell you that something horrible happens to John, and it changes both his life and the life of his wife forever. This change results in John sort of becoming a recluse due to medications that he takes. Connelly is so good because she takes hold of the reigns from that point. Her character now must take care of their child, remind John to take his pills, and basically support the family financially all by herself.
Although this is a small, human-sized film, it has a lot of large ideas. The most powerful and heart-wrenching scenes are the ones which encounter John and Alicia struggling with John’s inability to be a normal person. His huge dreams of success in the field of national security and decoding are shattered. He seems to have nothing else to live for.
Now this is what happens. Russell Crowe, who is excellent in nearly everything he does, absorbs this character. He becomes John Nash. We as an audience are transported to the time and place when this took place and stand as spectators in a crowd. This is the best performance of the year.
Howard, too, is at his best. The direction is fluid and perfectly timed. But what makes that timing so dead-on and that directing so simplistic-looking is James Horner’s musical score. This is a piece of music that is just as beautiful as the film itself: always uplifting, always hopeful, always moving along with the movie.
“A Beautiful Mind” is the collaboration of pros at their best, commanders at their most brilliant; a film that epitomizes the way films should be made and seen and savored. This is a motion picture of almost indescribable power. ****