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Review
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Emotionally resonant but suspect-- tells the story of
brilliant mathemetician John Nash, who had a huge impact on
economic and diplomatic theory, and then descended into
madness for almost thirty years before receiving the Nobel
Prize in Science in 1994.
It's a great story, moving, and amazing. The trouble is,
the story you see on the screen is not the story of John
Nash. It is the story of Hollywood's need to feel good
about feeling bad. When one reviewer described this film as
"authentic", he meant that he felt just bad enough about
Nash's schizophrenia to feel good about himself for feeling
bad for him. The trouble is the "schizophrenia" in the
movie is to real-life mental illness what Jennifer Connelly
is to your real-life wife.
In real life, Nash was gay (and that's why he was bounced
from the Rand Corporation-- called "Wheeler" in the movie,
apparently) and in real life, he fathered a child with
another woman and then abandoned both child and mother to a
life of poverty, before marrying a student, Alicia (Jennifer
Connelly) whom he also, in real life but not in the movie,
later divorced.
It is true that she came to be his major suppport later in
life, and they remarried after the Novel Prize. But Ron
Howard's cavalier way of handling these issues demonstrates
that this film is not about Nash at all, but about some
misconception and delusions that make us all feel good about
ourselves. Crowe doesn't get into his role-- he adopts the
exterior mannerisms of what a sane person thinks an insane
person is.
Connelly, however, is a surprise. She is very good, and she
is the source of the real emotional impact of the later part
of the story. She handles each important transition in
their relationship deftly, tastefully, and convincingly.
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