"A Beautiful Mind "

Mikometer Rating: 7 of 10

Russell Crowe as the Ivy League Rain Man stays in and reads newspapers in his jammies.

"A Beautiful Mind" is a Beautiful Mess"" would be my "one-sentence" review of Ron Howard's follow up to the megabucks crowd pleaser, "How The Grinch Stole Christmas". Pulling a Spielberg, Howard immediately dove in after the "Grinch" shoot to lens this gritty "retelling" of the story of John F. Nash, a somewhat reclusive and uncharismatic teacher at MIT who won the Nobel Prize in 1994 for writing a then radical theory of economics while attending Princeton on a fellowship for his doctorate in 1948. While the film has been criticized for taking artistic liberties with the real person's life (and since when were movies anything resembling real?) I had no quibble with any liberties that might have been taken. . Any real person whose life is portrayed in the movies is not going to be portrayed 100 percent honestly, because life usually lasts more than two hours. Besides, I thought "The Buddy Holly Story" was wonderful cinema, and I was enraged that the filmmakers "invented" members of his band The Crickets when there were plenty of real Crickets to choose from. It still didn't stop the movie from entertaining me. I really can't say whether or not Ron Howard's latest was really entertaining, unlike his 1999 satire of celebrity, "EDtv" which I but hardly anybody else found fascinating and wonderful..I am giving the "A Beautiful Mind" a 7 of 10 because I can't think of any reason not to like it. Yet it is still problematical to me, and therein lies the rub .Here, by the way, are some useful links to information about the "real" John F. Nash from a website dealing with mathematics and from the Nobel Prize Museum site.

(Here is a link to a webpage about the real John Nash)

( Here is a link to a Nash "autobiography" from the Nobel Prize website.)

I was disturbed by my inability to embrace "A Beautiful Mind". It will probably be up for a lot of Oscars and I didn't care too much about it from the previews. After the Globe win, along with my favorite film this year, "Moulin Rouge", I felt I had to see it to check out the competition. From the buzz, it might win a lot of noms, and might, being the only "studio flick" in the running , win the Oscar for Best PIc. The fact that I didn't really embrace it doesn't spoil it's chances, by the way. A lot of people like the film too. I didn't really care to see this film initially. The previews trumpeted "Good Will Hunting Meets Rainman." This was going to be one of those "actorly" pictures, and Russell would insure a nomination this year, and perhaps a subsequent win in the only big studio movie sure to be nominated. After it shared the Globes with Moulin Rouge, it is almost certain to be nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Crowe. Best Actress (Globe win for Supporting) or Supporting for Jennifer Connelly, and possibly director for Howard if some quirky choice like nominating David Lynch doesn't happen instead. So I needed to see it before nominations to see if it makes my cut, and it does, only by virtue it will be nominated, so why not admit it.

The movie is problematical, at best. I actually "glanced at my watch" at least two times. Parts of it drag, and parts are just cinematically troublesome. On the whole it is passable, but I thought Russell Crowe, while an excellent actor, was showboating a bit, and this role is essentially the "crazy guy with tics", and the performance belongs up there with the aforementioned Dustin Hoffman role, and Brad Pitt's turn in Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys".

Ron Howard is a fine film director, and has made quite a few wonderful films. Besides the aforementioned and underrated "EDtv" there was"Apollo 13" (95) and"Backdraft." (91). But Howard can stray from his craft at times. I have no compunction to ever see "Far and Away" again. "Willow" might be interesting to visit again after all these years, but from early hits "Splash" to "Night Shift" and "Cocoon" he has always been a populist director without a style. He has no "cinematic signature" and seems to "craft" his films using the somewhat prodigious knowledge he has learned from a lifetime in show business. When he's good, he's very good, but then he can be popular without being artistic, and knows exactly what to show, how to show it, and get on with the next scene, that his pictures generally make money, and his career is far from over. The buzz on "A Beautiful Mind" is the stuff of Oscars, and I wasn't impressed. I wasn't impressed with the cinematography, the presence,the themes, or the production design of the film. It was rather flat looking and somewhat routine. I did like the way the character's scizophrenia is introduced, but won't say anything more (Although spoilers abound in the press.) I waited a while before seeing this , obviously, but still was "surprised" by the little twist of perception half way through the picture when Jennifer Connelly, as Nash's long suffering wife, is given some shocking news by Christopher Plummer as a sinister looking psychiatrist which gives us another view of events we have seen through a different set of eyes and discover that "all is not what it seems". This moment I'm mentioning, by the way, is one of the few "artistic touches" in a rather artless project.. Acting is fine. Howard does well by his casts, that could be the only earmark of his "directing style" I can think of. Ed Harris, playing a shadowy CIA man, in what for him has become a "typecast" role, is realistically threatening and sinister. Jennifer Connelly, besides being astonishingly beautiful, is really seeming to bloom as an actress. She's been around forever: her first film was "Once Upon A Time in America". She hasn't been seen in patches like when she went to school or had her baby.Now she's winning Globes, so the impetus is there for an Oscar nomination. She has a "showy" Citizen Kane moment which probably cemented her Glove win in the bathroom after Nash refuses intimate relations with her because of his medication.

To repeat, I'm only awarding this movie a 7 of 10. I think it could have been better lensed, processed, and structured, and a few unneccessary minutes could have been trimmed. I think the look of the film is in keeping with the time period (the fifties) but Howard has used "hyperrealistic" cinematography before, which I especially liked, and I thought "Beautiful Mind" was too subdued. (The setting is the Ivy League, so the real places aren't exactly Universal Citywalkt.) Roger Deakins did the cinematography, and he's very good, but this didn't knock my socks off like say, "Backdraft"did.

The film delivers the goods, and I really can't pinpoint the problems I have with it. It just didn't Entertain me with a capital E. I had no epiphanies this time out at the movies. Roger Ebert in his review praised the scenes which took you inside Nash's head, and felt inspired enough to read up on the subject of schizophrenia.. I felt that Crowell was overacting a tad, like actors tend to do with these kinds of roles. Perhaps Ron goaded him into overacting deliberately. This does bother me. The explanations of the disease, (PLOT POINT ALERT) the manifestations of people who aren't there, the studied methods Howard uses to keep reminding us (and the character) of his madness are well presented. I didn't believe for one moment that Crowe was John Nash, schizo genius. I thought of him as Russell Crowe, actor, for probably the first time in his career.

If it sounds as if I am not offering this film a recommendation, that's not true, I am. It is far better than a lot of dreck that passes for cinema these days, and it doesn't have a II or III behind the title, so that's two marks for it sight unseen. The story, while derided by some critics acting on a report originally on Matt Drudge's website that the facts were played fast and loose, is tight, plausible, and intriguing enough. My main fault, I would guess, is my fault with Howard's inability to stamp his signature, and Russell Crowe's seemingly effortless overacting style. The scenes are memorable, and the acting between Connelly and Crowe is excellent. I like Russell enough to have rented "Proof of Life" after seeing this one, because I didn't catch "Life" in a theater. "Proof of Life" is a better movie, and it isn't on anyone's radar for an Academy Award. Of course Crowe spoke with an Australian "accent" in "Proof of Life" and to the academy, that isn't acting. Shuffling around , waving your hands, and speaking with an American accent. That's acting.

I'll probably like "A Beautiful Mind" much better in a year or two when I see it again, and who knows, the academy voters might just forget they gave him the statue last year and give it to him two years in a row. He did a better acting job in "Gladiator", with less tics and business. I read that Ron took the reins of this film right after "Grinch" because his schedule permitted it, and he wasn't even tapped to dircet initially. I wonder what a more artistic director might have fashioned with the material.