He saw the world in a way no one could have imagined.
From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash Junior (Russell Crowe) experienced it all. A mathematical genius, he made an astonishing discovery early in his career and stood on the brink of international acclaim. But the handsome and arrogant Nash soon found himself on a painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery. After many years of struggle, he eventually triumphed over this tragedy, and finally - late in life - received the Nobel Prize.
Secret Agent Acid Thunder
I have never seen anyone pretend to be a paranoid schizophrenic before. Nice. I know the symptoms and visible characteristics of sufferers (that semester of medicine at university wasn't entirely wasted) and Russell Crowe did very well. Amazingly well.
What a lot of people don't realise is that schizos are some of the smartest individuals in the world. They understand all the same things that normal people do, but often without the unconscious process that provides that information. It's all a conscious mind thing. Meanwhile, the ones who are least able to express themselves (ie have the weakest social skills) who are the more mentally gifted.
A beautiful mind is headed toward a few Oscar nominations.
But, before anyone discards it because of a perceived lack of any true emotion, I want you, the audience, to watch the big names as though they were on the silver screen for the first time, just like you did when you saw Superman the first time, and Christopher Reeve wasn't the top billing despite being the main character.
Russell - and Ed, Judd and Jennifer - bring a new side of isometric to the cinema: practicality. But don't forget the man whom Russell portrayed, John Forbes Nash Junior: a real life individual, very quiet and out of the spotlight, hardly documented, yet a Nobel Prize-winner. For economics! I still don't get how physics has anything to do with economics but John did. He also proved that schizophrenia is an affliction of the mind, not a degenerative disease.
Go see this film.
M (Adult themes)
135 minutes (2:15 hours)
Film: 7 March 2002