REEL REFLECTIONS

THE TRUE AND THE BEAUTIFUL

David Greiser

Review of “A Beautiful Mind,” directed by Ron Howard. Universal Pictures, 2001.

I know that I did promise my faithful readers (all three of them!) a review in this issue of the Harry Potter film, which I originally intended to compare with “Lord of the Rings.” But a week before sitting down to write, I came across the substance of what I wanted to say in the January 22, 2002 issue of The Mennonite, under Gordon Houser’s byline. Alas! The reader is referred there for a worthy comparison of these two films.

I turn instead to another recent offering, from director Ron Howard (“Apollo 13,” “Willow,” and, yes, Ron was Opie in Mayberry). “A Beautiful Mind” is a filmed adaptation of Sylvia Nasar’s prize-winning biography of mathematics laureate John Nash. Nash was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1994 for his discoveries in game theory, which subsequently made a profound impact on economics, political theory, and even psychology. For a large part of his life, Nash also believed the Russians were sending him coded messages in the pages of magazines.

The story of Nash’s descent into paranoid schizophrenia and his subsequent recovery makes for an absorbing study of genius, madness, prometheian ambition, and the humanizing power of love. One of the strongest elements of the film is its perspective. Howard chooses to show us Nash’s fall into madness through the eyes of Nash himself.

For that reason, we are well into the film before we make the shocking discovery that certain of the film’s characters and situations do not in fact exist. In the world of postmodern film, reality is a construct of the mind, and Howard expertly explores that concept by his choice of a first-person perspective on mental delusion. As the film progresses, we discover the parameters of what is real and what is delusional, even as Nash himself is making these discoveries.

Russell Crowe, who plays the part of John Nash, has the remarkable physical and emotional ability to reinvent his subject over a 47-year time-span and at multiple levels of sanity. His work here is much more subtle and complex than his performance in last year’s “Gladiator”; it’s too bad the Academy is unlikely to award him two Best Actor awards in a row. Crowe does a wonderful job portraying Nash’s metamorphosis from a one-dimensional man of extreme intelligence and ambition into a chastened genius who acknowledges that his wife’s sacrificial love has been a crucial part of his scholarly success.

Unfortunately, the film oversimplifies this transformation by ignoring important parts of Nash’s life in the Nasar biography. The real Nash was emotionally abusive, spiteful, bisexual, and sexually profligate, which led him to be divorced from his wife for a time. The integration of his character was neither as neat nor as complete as director Howard leads us to believe. It raises the question of how much license a director is allowed to take when adapting a book for the screen.

Despite this weakness, “A Beautiful Mind” is a powerful exploration of the interiors of genius and madness. We all struggle at some level with the contours of fantasy and reality; this film explores the outer limits of that struggle, and the power of relational commitment to bring wholeness.

—David Greiser is a pastor at Souderton Mennonite Church and a preaching teacher. He teaches a Sunday school elective on faith and films.