Hey folks, Harry here... From sources inside Hollywood, the conversations at various parties in and around the burg of Hollywood, the Christmas types... The parties where the first real discussions begin about Oscar contenders. The word coming from these events has been that FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and A BEAUTIFUL MIND are the films they see the showdown coming down between this March. I have yet to see A BEAUTIFUL MIND, but personally I can't imagine MULHOLLAND DRIVE not figuring into this race as it is simply fantastic. This is definitely one that I look forward to. There was a screening of the movie with Russell Crowe here in Austin the the evening after BUTT-NUMB-A-THON, but I was exhausted from the marathon... and alas missed it. That would have been something indeed! Here's a look...
Greetings, Harry, and a Happy Holiday to you.
I saw A Beautiful Mind tonight in Fresno, California and thought that, since the majority of your readership does not have access to "exclusive engagements" like the one I saw tonight, you might be interested in what I thought of it.
Before I give you my appraisal, let me give you a little context with which you can judge my review. I worked at a 21 screen theater this past summer and, as a result of the free passes my employment allowed me, saw almost all the films released during that period. From the passionate and brilliant (Moulin Rouge, Shrek, Memento) to the boring and shitty (Tomb Raider, The Animal, Curse of the Jade Scorpion) I was there as consistently as most critics. Since school started again, my theater attendance hasn't been as high, but I've seen all the major releases and a few smaller ones as well. So, it is with a good 50-plus films under my belt this year that I count A Beautiful Mind amongst the best. It wasn't so good that I got on my knees and praised the Lord for sending this gift to me and redeeming a shitty year filled with much hype and little pay off (I did do that last Wednesday :) ), but it was darn close.
As most people know, the movie follows the true story of John Nash from graduate school at Princeton, through his teaching tenure at MIT, through his decline into paranoia and up until his triumphant Nobel Prize award.
The most obvious and important thing the movie has going for it is the acting. The script has some shortcomings in terms of character development and in having characters react to certain situations in ways that are believable, but the acting is so good, the performances so fierce that I wasn't really bothered by flaws in the writing. Predictably, Russell Crowe was the standout. I think this may have been the strongest performance of his career, and I consider his third consecutive Oscar nomination a safe bet. I haven't seen The Majestic yet, but I've heard that Jim Carrey struggles when the camera is stuck on his face, that he is much better at conveying emotion when he is moving around. I think Carrey is underrated and don't know if this is a legitimate gripe, but I do know Crowe does not have any such problem. I really and truly felt his pain and his triumph, his satisfaction and his failure. As a humanities student, I consid! er math homework to be one of the most awful things in the world and have spent many nights cursing the name of my professor and wondering if the assignement's difficulty is due to his failure to get any or his being the spawn of Satan. In spite of this, I was drawn in by Crowe's mathematical quest. His Nash's conviction is so inspiring that he had even me thinking of enrolling in multivariable calculus next quarter in hopes of maybe seeing the wonder that is so apparant in his eyes. Even after that insane thought had passed, the universality of Crowe's desires remained. He wants to find something original that will rock the world, and many people can relate to that. The other performances are great as well. Jennifer Connelly is as good as I've ever seen her. Ed Harris is solid, but I don't think he's doing anything special here. He's a good actor and I'd love to see the Academy recognize him, but his role here is not very ! deep and he doesn't have to do much reaching.
I read somewhere that the screenwriter (his name escapes me) is "one of the worst in the business". Based on this movie, I cannot agree. While the story might've fallen flat with a less worthy cast, I don't think it could have been turned into anything THAT awful. (You never know, though. I didn't think good acting even came close to saving Life as a House.) I've heard A Beautiful Mind's dialogue described as "pedestrian", and, based on the trailer's "but the important thing is a beautiful heart" and "its the same with love I guess", I would have agreed. When I saw the movie, however, I changed my mind. In fact, I thought a lot of the dialogue was witty and pretty funny, especially during the early moments at Princeton. As an undergraduate at Stanford, I got a kick out of the scenes in which the college kids were trying to get laid, and I found the dialogue to be believable and not too different from what I ! hear in the hallways at school. Even the minor characters came to life in a manner that does justice to the mind set many kids at presigeous universities have. Some of the Princeton characters made me think of this kid in my Latin class, this arrogant and self righteous, but unmistakably brilliant, kid who was know only as "The Bastard" when my buddy and I used to speak of him. The Princeton students are depcited with the the right amount of arrogant swagger that they'd appear to be bastards to the, as Nash calls them, "lesser mortals". As we get to know the characters, however, it becomes apparant that they are god people and not bastards, a revelation not unlike the day when I discovered "The Bastard" might not be the asshole I judged him to be. This realistic depiction made the characters very believable to me, and it helped draw me into the movie's story.
Where I thought the script had problems was in developing Alicia, Connelly's character. We never really get a feel for why she falls for the Crowe, who seems to have been branded an asshole by the rest of the female population. Her aggressive attraction to Nash, and her acceptance of his basically saying "let's quit this traditional courtship junk and get it on", didn't seem like anything a real person would do. I guess, however, that it wuld take a unique person to fall for someone like Nash. After they get married, her reaction to his decline is very believable, however, and it made me forget about the problems I initially had with her. There are also some continuity issues. The story will abruptly leap years forward without much closure and there are some scenes that are connected despite not having any relation that I noticed.
Ron Howard's direction seemed pretty good, up there with his work on Apollo 13 in my opinion. I'm not sure how many of the tragic details he might have glossed over, not being all that familair with Nash's life. I did think the tone got really dark at times, though, and that Howard may actually have waited too long in between comedic moments. In terms of good things, I think the movie makes good use of its surroundings, letting the stone towers of the Ivy League establish an academic and ambitious tone at the beggining, letting greys and blues dominate the tragic moments later, etc. I also really liked the way Howard played with light and camera angles to show how Nash's mind worked. John Horner's score also contributed heavily here. A day ago, I was convinced that Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings score had the Oscar wrapped up. I now consider Horner's work here a worthy competitior. This is far removed from En! emy at the Gates, where he ripped off his own horn theme from Willow and borrowed from John Williams' main Schindler's List theme without remorse. There are moments when Nash is pondering some problem with the numbers balletically swirling around him and the music following suit in a rush of subtle yet striking notes. In these moments, I really was in Nash's mind. I don't think Horner's score is better than Shore's work, but I definitely think it should earn the composer another nomination.
All in all, I have few complaints. I'd place it third on my top ten list this year, behind The Lord of the Rings, my unequivocal favorite, and Moulin Rouge and ahead of Memento and Shrek. It might actually be better than the passionate and energized Moulin Rouge, but I haven't seen A Beautiful Mind twice yet and don't know how it maches up the second time around. In any case, its worth seeing and I can see A Beautiful Mind, if the Academy cannot break convention and recognize something from the fantasy genre, walking away with the Academy Award for Best Picture, epsecially given the mediocre reviews I've read for Ali. I give it 8.5/10
If you use this, call me Cardinal Phantom.
