A Beautiful Mind (2001) Review || Oscar Madness #74

[@solomonrichards599]

You make fun, that director Ron Howard directed "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" the year prior, wait till you hear, that the screen writer Akiva Goldsman (who also won an Oscar) wrote "Batman & Robin" 5 years prior.

[@fr.williamnicholas955]

"A Beautiful Mind" was the token Oscar for Ron Howard. A file-it-and-forget-it film that was enjoyable watching the first time, but, like "The 6th Sense" is not good for multiple viewings because you already know the surprise twists and turns. (BTW - John and Alicia actually divorced in 1963, then remarried in 2001 only to both be killed in a car accident in 2015) On the other hand, regarding "Fellowship", I think the Academy saw the writing on the wall and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy was going to be the juggernaut for the next three years (and they knew they would not dare fail to award the third and last film). Nice to see they overcame the trend of the nineties (see comment for "Shakespear in Love") but this was a particular juggernaut that deserved to sweep, and sweeping three years in a row would have been an unmatched and unbeatable Oscar trend.

[@IaMD.B.]

Regardless, the award is called Best Picture. They should've given to the best picture of every year. It's not The Lord of the Rings' fault that all three films were better than all the rest:)

[@adamhasideas6813]

I rated this as the 65th Best Picture winner. Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly are both very good. For a biopic I'm not sure they really explain why John Nash's mathematical accomplishments are so important. I did like the emphasis on how strong ties of love can be redemptive.

[@ΓΕΏΡΓΙΟΣ-ι8ν]

Hello im db. What film would choose other than Fellowship of the ring?

[@IaMD.B.]

Out of the nominees, I've only seen Fellowship and Moulin Rouge. So I guess A Beautiful Mind was the second best choice out of the three that I saw. If I include all the films released in 2001, my second favorite is Spirited Away.

[@ΓΕΏΡΓΙΟΣ-ι8ν]

@@IaMD.B. Spirited away was eligible the next year and won best animated feature film

[@IaMD.B.]

@@ΓΕΏΡΓΙΟΣ-ι8ν I know, but I consider it a 2001 film. 2001 was a pretty weak year to be honest, it just has two bona fide masterpieces in Fellowship and Spirited Away.

[@kirstinebrown9013]

I genuinely thought you were gonna rant about the fact that “Moulin Rouge!” was up for Best Picture, but I guess not! 😅

[@IaMD.B.]

I'm gonna mention it next week

[@solomonrichards599]

Pretty much all Baz Luhrmann does, are overly long feverdreams, that are somehow, for all their superficial extravaganza completely shallow.

[@robertmarginean164]

Let's be straight-up, the only reason Lord of the Rings didn't win 3 yesrs in a row is because it would've been really boring and they wanted to give others a chance. And I'm a guy that actually y digs Chicago. On this movie, I thought it was pretty damn good well executed, not a lot of glaring issues, but ultimately pretty safe and not super memorable. It's funny to me because I watched this flick years ago for the first time and this year I embarked on the quest of watching al Best Picture winners and ranking them and I rewatched this movie to refresh my memory of it. I remembered quite a bit about it, but totally forgot that Jennifer Connely was in it or that John had a love interest in this movie at all. Upon rewatch, I thought she was probably the best aspect of the movie. That just stood out to me as interesting how my perspective sort of shifted there. Another interesting detail about this movie is that it completely shifted my experience with Fight Club. The day I first watched A Beautiful Mind is the same day I watched Fight Club for the first time, so less than halfway through Fincher's movie, I was able to figure out the twist because literally hours before I had also watched a movie about the protagonist seeing people who aren't actually there.

[@patriciafenwick5846]

I love this film, seen it multiple times. Russell Crowe should have got best actor for this, rather than for Gladiator (although he was brilliant in that, too). Perhaps it got best picture because it was filmed chronologically. Crowe said once that this allowed him to evolve with the character. It was better than filming all the Princeton scenes all at once then the at home scenes, then the Ed Harris scenes etc. And his performance was probably all the better for that.

[@aijamberisabel]

This is a well-made movie but sometimes it is too flashy for its own good. It is barely genuine to his story as it does quite often over exaggerate his experience of schizophrenia and it does completely fabricate some symptoms just for dramatic effect with isn’t great. And the title does kind of simplify his struggles in a way that glorifies it that does really connect with me because nothing about his condition is beautiful but I do get the title is relating to his intelligence and not his suffering but still it is a huge issue. This makes what should be an emotional ending feel like nothing in the end which is the whole point. The beginning of the romantic subplot is a little problematic for me as it did start between him and one of his students which didn’t sit right with me but as it went on I started to get really invested and Alicia is genuinely such a great wife and woman, it can’t be understated. However the acting was great and Russel Crowe did a fantastic job and was the standout of the film. Some scenes in it were really captivating especially those codebreaking one where it was drawing the line between reality and fantasy and they were really well done. The main antagonists of the film were really well-done as they were instantly hatable but I do feel like they could have been written better but still. The direction was top notch and some scenes were genuinely terrifying. This is one of the earliest b best Picture winners I saw and it was a good one to start off with despite my obvious gripes with the content and overall plot. The rest of it was really well-done though so I would say it is a 7/10 and there were definitely more deserving choices that year that should have won over this despite it being good. I would watch it again but it is far from the top of my list, in fact it is near the middle in the lower end of my list but if anything that just shows the quality of all the winners for me.

[@ThePreciseClimber]

Uh oh. The three years of LotR bias are starting. :P

[@IaMD.B.]

Oh yes they are!!!

[@flyingrobotduck]

@@ThePreciseClimber How Chicago won best picture and not The Two Towers is beyond me. 😁

[@ThePreciseClimber]

@@flyingrobotduck I mean, for 2002, I would've given it to Spirited Away over those two movies.

[@flyingrobotduck]

I've only seen A Beautiful Mind once, but I have to agree, a good movie, but nothing special.

[@spriles]

Your take on this movie is laughable. You can't get invested in the film on rewatch because you know it's not real? You know movies aren't real right? It's not a twist rugpull for the sake of a twist. The point is that the tension and chases are very real in his mind and the movie is trying to get you to understand how powerful the delusions are. It becomes a story about the characters struggle with his own mind. Easily rewatchable with that understanding.

[@IaMD.B.]

Well, obviously I disagree with you. What you're talking about, making us understand how powerful the delusions are, I think the film does that very effectively... after we know it's in his mind. The scenes where his delusions really mess with him, make him hurt others, those scenes were great. But earlier, the film isn't aiming for that point, it's playing it straight, like it's really happening, and we're with John as he goes through this. After knowing it's not real, those scenes lose some of their power for me. Have you seen the last Twilight movie? There's a whole fight scene that turns out to be not real. If over there making the scene not actually happen in the world of the story makes it feel pointless, then why not here? I have a unique idea on what the film could've done: In the second act, they could've switched to his wifes point of view. We could follow her for a while, we could see that from her perspective John is acting strange, and then after we finally understand he's delusional, then we could be shown what he's seeing. That could've been an effective way to handle it. I don't know if it would've made the film better, but it would've been interesting at the least.