A Beautiful Mind

By Rick Curnutte

Richard A. Curnutte, Jr. is the Editor of The Film Journal. He has studied English and Film at Ohio University and The Ohio State University. He is a founding member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association and a member of the Online Film Critics Association.

The controversy over Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind has taken away an important fact: the Oscar-winning film is a terrific example of Hollywood filmmaking at its best.

Howard's slick production chops up Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Nash, to be sure, but handsome photography and an inventive screenplay by Akiva Goldsman provide ample reasons to admire the filmmaking.

Best of all are the central performances by Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany. As the Nashs, Crowe and Connelly strike the perfect notes as foils for each other: he the tempestuous genius, she the calm that weathers the storm. And Bettany gives another strong supporting turn as Nash's "imaginary friend", as it were, a phantom of support that Nash is required to finally abandon for sanity.

Only horrific aging makeup at the film's end prevent it from being a flawlessly executed piece of studio production.