A Beautiful Mind

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Cast : </span>Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Direction :</span>Ron Howard<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Rating :</span> ****<br /><br /><img height="108" width="129" src="-00.jpg" alt="-00.jpg" border="0" /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">MIRACLES are possible.All you need is love to overcome the most daunting odds.Indeed Sylvia Nasar''s 1998 biography of the eccentric mathematics genius, John Forbes Nash, Jr., turns out to be ideal material for director Howard, who has celebrated triumph over adversity, in the emotionally rousing Far And Away (1992) and Apollo 13 (1995).A stranger-than-fiction tale of the real-life mathematician''s protracted struggle with mental illness and his eventual recovery, A Beautiful Mind is as inspiring as it is excellently crafted.The sensitive screenplay by Akiva Goldsman (A Time To Kill) chronicles the life of Nash (Crowe) from his days as a shy, slovenly student at a top-league university in the late 1940s to 1994 when he won a Nobel prize for his trail-blazing game theory in the field of economics.We are made privy to the young prodigy''s descent into delusional schizophrenia. At the height of the Cold War, Nash buckled under the strain of a clandestine code-breaking assignment.Expectedly, the mental disorder seriously affected Nash''s marriage to his former student (Connelly). Yet, she remained steadfastly to her husband''s side, patiently nursing him back to normalcy.The husband-and-wife relationship, which has spanned nearly five decades, forms the emotional core of the film. Consistently, the man''s helplessness and the wife''s resilience in never-letting-go are depicted with a dramatic incisiveness. Incidentally, today the real-life couple still reside close to Princeton, where the Nobel laureate, now 74, continues to influence a whole new generation of students.Occasionally populating the plot with fictional characters and events, director Howard handles the complex narrative shifts with commendable ease. The low-key, unsentimental approach successfully captures a state of mind wracked by anxieties and paranoia.Throughout, the intimately-scaled film benefits considerable from Roger Deakins'' cinematography with its subdued tones and softly-lit interiors, James Horner''s <img height="93" width="129" src="-01.jpg" alt="-01.jpg" border="0" /></div> </div><div class="section3"><div class="Normal">unobtrusive music score and above all, the superb ensemble performances.Connelly as the devoted wife, Ed Harris as a nightmarish Federal agent and veteran Christopher Plummer as the sympathetic psychiatrist, are particularly impressive.Quite naturally, Crowe presides over the show magisterially. The Academy award-winning actor of Gladiator has effortlessly traded swords and sandals for a diametrically different cerebral persona. His mesmerising portrayal of Nash (he ages more than 40 years with amazing conviction) is more than likely to fetch this chameleon of an actor his second consecutive Oscar, unless Will Smith (Ali)> or Denzel Washington (Training Day) pip him to the post. Tomorrow will tell.In any event,A Beautiful Mind is an absolutely must-see for those who crave sense and substance at the movies. </div> </div>