A Beautiful Mind
I apologise in advance to whoever nominated this, because it’s not nice when someone hates your movie. To be fair, I didn’t hate it, I just thought it was extremely average.
Spoilers follow…
The King’s Speech ,might be the least edgy best picture nomination of recent years, but A Beautiful Mind is perhaps the blandest. Everything about it just seemed very staid and lacking in charm or interest. Hallucinations aside, there wasn’t much exciting about the direction, the editing is pretty choppy (who was it that said good editing is when you don’t notice the editing? Not sure I always agree but I noticed it here and not in a good way). It doesn’t even look good. Everything looks so beige and fifties-dress-up and there’s barely any interesting or well framed shots in the entire thing. I’m at a loss to understand how this won Howard Best Director.
I wonder if this is one of those films that people think is clever just because there’s a twist. And I have to say, it is a good twist, it certainly piqued my interest in the movie more at that point and was thinking back over the events so far in a new light. But that interest wasn’t sustained. This film is just really, really dull. And it just goes on. And there wasn’t enough maths in it.
I wasn’t keen on the whole silly ‘using the principles of Go to get laid’ in the bar nonsense. Or the throwing the desk out of the window. In fact, all of the ‘lighter’ moments missed the mark for me, which made it a fairly joyless experience. And the way he ‘overcomes’ his schizophrenia with the attendant swelling music made me cringe. Regarding the music, I really liked the main repeated theme but it was much too much in some scenes, more dramatic than it needed to be. It would probably be a really good piece of music if it weren’t attached to the film.
I’m not particularly a fan of Russell Crowe (with the exception of Gladiator) and I wasn’t impressed with him here (although he plays old a lot better than he plays young). I’m not generally a fan of Jennifer Connelly but she’s all right here - but not really Oscar winning good though. She just plays the bland supportive wife who occasionally gets to look scared. I liked Christopher Plummer as the doctor, he really does come across as potentially sinister but potentially kindly and misunderstood. And Paul Bettany is good.
Did it deserve to win Best Picture? Hell no. I would have picked Moulin Rouge!, personally, but any of the other nominations over this. Or Mulholland Drive. Or Black Hawk Down. And I would have given best director to any of the other nominees (or Luhrmann. Or Wes Anderson). I can’t help thinking there must have been a split vote and this was the safe choice that won through.