The film begins with momentum. Young mathematics
geniuses attend competitive graduate classes at a
prestigious university. Russell Crowe plays John Nash
(the real life subject of this story). Somewhat
socially undeveloped, with little time for small
talk, he speaks his beautiful mind directly,
indulging in effectively jagged sarcasm towards the
local favored scholar. While the others complete
their courses and publish works, Nash pencils
theories and conjectures on the Victorian windows of
the university library. Solitarily disregarding
standard student responsibilities, Nash studies the
movements of pigeons or strategies of boys hitting on
women -- searching for that one sweet original
idea.
All too soon, Nash finds a workable postulate and
graduates into a research professorship at the
lab/university of his choosing where he becomes
involved with top secret government decoding and a
young college coed. The humor of his rough-edged
socializing and courting make a much more interesting
film than that which "Beautiful Mind" actually
becomes ... and that would be a psychological
thriller.
Taking a few lighter tangents from its foci, the
film teases the audience with wonderful scenes of
this nature: Nash reluctantly stumbles into a
calculus class that he feels somehow forced to teach.
His first day commentary, "This class will be a waste
of your, and what is infinitely worse, my, time."
After which he lazily slides the textbook off the
podium into the trash. Unfortunately, fresh moments
like this slip to the back of the class.
Then, dabbling with a mostly fresh and original
romance (though a hokie starlit scene seeps in),
"Beautiful Mind" begins settling into the
psychological thriller it eventually decides to be.
Is Nash really working for the FBI operative played
by Ed Harris, or is Nash delusional? Though all
perform marvelously, the eventual focus is so vastly
different from the light and quirky first act, many
viewers may feel disoriented by the switch in genre
and lose interest in the film as a whole.
An interesting quote from director Ron Howard,
"There's an element of danger with an number of these
actors - especially Russell Crowe, Ed Harris and
Christopher Plummer. They project an unpredictably
and volatility that might surprise people in a movie
perceived as human interested or intellectual.
There's always a palpable, visceral tension with them
onscreen."
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