A BEAUTIFUL MIND |
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A BEAUTIFUL MIND |
Rating
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Cast & Crew info:
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Written by DAVID KEYES
Modest, reticent, offbeat and underestimated math genius John Nash is told at the start of "A Beautiful Mind" by an instructor at Princeton that he, or any one of his fellow classmates, could very well be the next Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. Immediately we see the groundwork layed for a standard feel-good character study, saturated with promises of cheep and shameless sentiment and dripping with the obvious intent on manipulating audiences right down to the last provoked tear. Our anticipation, which has been built drastically in the recent weeks thanks to an ominous yet intriguing promotional campaign, suddenly dies down, and as we wait in the dark theater for the picture to throw out its first emotional outburst, we ache with displeasure. But a peculiar thing happens only a few short minutes after our senses feel desensitized. We actually being to admire the movie. Our high expectations are renewed. And we slowly but surely start to anchor our faith and admiration in the main character, who is no more a faux Hollywood creation than Jar Jar Binx is a masterful special effects invention. In fact, this John Nash character is perhaps much more genuine and intricate than the average young prodigy found in most decent character studies; he bursts with charm, knowledge, kindness and serene directness, but suffers the devastating impact of an incurable modern illness, something that nearly takes away everything he has ever worked for. "A Beautiful Mind" is based on the true story of one of the 20th centuries most revered and successful mathematicians, a man who flourished wisdom and success during his years as a student at a top-notch Ivy League university, later instructed at MIT, nearly fell from grace when he was diagnosed with schitzophrenia, and later was awarded the Nobel Prize. The individual in question, Mr. John Forbes Nash, is played here by Russell Crowe in perhaps one of the finest acting achievements seen on screen in the past two years. Nash, as the film tells us, was very much the misunderstood type because his approach to learning fit no conventional technique; he believed there was a scientific explanation for everything, he though that games he couldn't win at were somehow flawed, and time and time again, he was spotted in his dorm room scratching numbers and complex equations all over his window pains, trying incessantly to solve or understand theories that not even the masters of mathematics were able to do. As he tells his roommate Charles (Paul Bettany) in an early scene, "my teacher once said I was born with two helpings of brain and only one helping of heart." The level of intelligence Nash possessed was probably too great to explain, but the film doesn't insist we delve into his psyche to find out. Instead we merely see his mysterious gift manifest in the numerous activities he is involved with, one of them being the assignment to decode a Russian secret message for the Pentagon, who fear that their military may be close to dropping an atomic bomb on U.S. Soil. The message is presented on large boards in random numbers, and as Nash's eyes swiftly scan over them, he is able to identify patterns that stand out. Similar affects occur when he stares at newspaper headlines for a top secret assignment for a length of time. And though he can't explain what his mind does, the ability fuels his need to investigate, theorize and solve the problems laid out before him. Unfortunately, as those passions are fueled, so is his increasing paranoia of being watched. Assigned as part of a confidential research team, Nash quickly gets the feeling that the government wants to silence him for the integral information he knows about them, and as he catches mysterious figures following him around, he collapses mentally in utter panic. Later, at a local psychiatric ward, doctors diagnose him with schitzophrenia, a mental disorder that causes hallucinations and utter hysteria. His wife Alicia (Jennifer Connely) tries to assure the doctor (Christopher Plummer) that John is working on top secret information and isn't crazy, but how can anyone be sure? If he is a schitzo, isn't is just possible he imagined the whole thing? The movie does an interesting trick with his illness, too; instead of directly revealing the evidence to the audience, we see the world and its manifestations through Nash's eyes, leaving the audience to wonder whether what we've just witnessed is either a figment of his mind or simply a good old government cover-up. Eventually the truth surfaces, but not before we have been dragged into a highly tense and ominous cluster of scenes depicting the battle between reality and insanity. The film's intensely deep investigation of this ominous disease is so thorough that, at times, we feel as if we've contracted it ourselves. But it isn't solely about the disease itself, nor is it about the man's individual achievements. Above all else, "A Beautiful Mind" is a story of survival and perseverence. The movie was directed by Ron
Howard, who, as I have made so abundantly clear in the past, is not exactly
one of my favorite directors. Shockingly, the work he presents us with
in "A Beautiful Mind" is not just his own best, but some of
the most astounding of the year. The movie practically bleeds with authenticity;
every moment, every bit of the crucial investigation is pulled off with
passion and allure. And what's more, Howard has the talent of Crowe at
his disposal, who now may very well be one of our greatest living actors
working in Hollywood. Combine that with equally fantastic supporting performances
and a script that seldom slacks off, and "A Beautiful Mind"
is one hell of a movie.
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All the above images are linked to the Internet Movie Database. |
Animated (US); 2001; Rated G; 92 Minutes
Cast
John Goodman: Sullivan
Billy Crystal: Mike
Mary Gibbs: Boo
Steve Buscemi: Randall
James Coburn: Waternoose
Jennifer Tilly: Celia
Produced by Darla K. Anderson, John Lasseter, Kori Rae and Andrew Stanton; Directed by Peter Docter, David Silverman and Lee Unkrich; Screenwritten by Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese and Andrew Stanton
By DAVID KEYES
On the other side of closet doors, in a universe right next door to the ones explored in "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life" (in which toys and insects live social and productive lives), lies the land of Monstropolis, a colorful but eccentric cityscape that houses beings not unlike what many of us imagined were living in closets or under beds when we were young. What has never been said of monsters, however, prior to Pixar's "Monsters, Inc." is that human children scare them just as much as they scare us, and though kids may pull blankets over their heads for fear of a furry large beast emerging from a doorway, those same large creatures live with the idea that all children are toxic and can hurt them right back.
Why do they frighten children, then, if there is a similar fear in them? The movie tells us that their world is powered by the heat of a youngster's little screams, thus making it essential for the monsters to jump out at them and stimulate their shrieking. The job is getting rather tough to do, however, because children, being exposed to the disturbing and violent images on television, are becoming increasingly harder to scare. This puts a heavy burden on the film's main character, James P. Sullivan (or Sully, voiced by John Goodman), a big, blue, hairy (but kindhearted) creature who has the reputation at the local Monsters, Inc. power plant of scaring the most children and collecting the most screams. The majority of the time, his efforts pay off . . . until one day a door connecting their world with a child's closet gets left open, and a cute little girl named Boo wanders into Monstropolis without a shred of fear of any creature she comes in contact with. The most charming development: Boo refers to Sully as "Kitty."
The key to the film's success is that it doesn't simply tell a story, but totally re-imagines an idea. Like "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life," the previous efforts from the masterminds over at Pixar, "Monsters Inc." tells its story from the perspective of creatures who are completely misunderstood by their sources, namely children. All kids are scared of monsters at night, but what they don't realize, as the plot explains to us, is that it's nothing personal; the beasts are simply doing their job. The innocent logic used here is what makes Pixar's products some of the best the animation market has to offer to begin with, and at a time when the entertainment industry is bound by the restrictions of the hectic outside world, it is a very warm welcome to the movie screen. That doesn't mean it's a groundbreaking film, but it's hardly a bad one, either.
The movie's characters are some of the most interesting ever seen in animation. Sully (Goodman), for example, looks like a cross between a tie-dye shirt and the abominable snowman, and his best friend, little Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) could pass off as either an alien or a Cyclops. Many casual animation fans could easily be put off by this quirky visual realization, but not to worry--the movie anchors them closer to reality by using them in ways that reflect our own lives, such as making them workers of a power plant that is struggling to retain its power source (obviously echoing the current power shortages occurring on the US west coast).
On an artistic and creative level, "Monsters, Inc." may be the most visionary, intricate and offbeat product released by Pixar. However, it does not quite achieve the memorable thrust of the studio's other films, nor does it contain the substantial magic of Dreamworks' recent "Shrek." That's not necessarily a bad thing for the younger audiences (especially since the latter film is more of an adult-oriented satire that only looks like a kids movie), but for those who were old enough to marvel the freedom and ingenuity of the studio's previous endeavors, it leaves a little something to be desired. Sure, the concept is bold and fresh (where else have you heard of monsters scaring kids as part of a job?), but the characters don't always execute it as well as they should. Jennifer Tilly does a rather annoying bit as the apple of Mike's eye, and the green creature himself, likewise, is brought down by the overbearing influence of Billy Crystal's standup shtick (despite the fact that the animators, who are only working with one eyeball, manage to animate him in astoundingly expressive ways).
And yet through all of these little problems, the movie remains cute, ambitious, fun, colorful, well-animated, and most importantly, intelligent. Pixar has been known to heighten the creative bar for computer animation in a way that many others have only attempted, and in several ways, they do so here by being less focused on the elaborate visuals and more concerned with the potential emotional depth of the story. Monsters, after all, play a significant role in the life of a child–who live night after night believing that big scary ghouls will be jumping out of their closets to scare them to death.
After seeing "Monsters, Inc.," needless to say, kids might actually start looking forward to those kinds of encounters.
FINAL VERDICT:
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