It is my favorite movie. I adore Russell Crowe as an actor.
Since I was so determined to see this movie because I really wanted to see it when it was released but I never got around doing it... I figured I would make it up.
First of all, amazing acting from Russel Crowe. I am impressed. He seems to have a very broad register of roles and he delivers. He plays a very complex and different character, but he does it quite convincingly. I do not know John Nash and I haven't read his biography of which this movie is based on; but if the person in the movie resembles the real John Nash, I think he would have liked to partake in our discussion about introvertion! (Originally wrote this in a forum where the question about introvertion was brought up)
Jokes aside, first of all, I should start with saying I didn't consider the movie bad, but there were some parts I really wanted more elaborated to give it a higher score in my eyes. One of those is that we never really understood much of his friends etc, and how his schizofrenia was discovered. I also wanted more background detail of his life, and in frustration I even went to Wikipedia.
Suffice to say, I felt I got to know John Nash very well but all the other characters were like sidedrags. I didn't really know their names and I didn't understand why they were there at all. Also while I realize the movie is primarily about John Nash the person, not John Nash the matematician, it focused more on his schizofrenia than his mathematical work. Now, I find schizofrenia a very interesting mental illness, and while it was one of the major driving forces to see this movie I also wanted to know more about his work! It is briefly mentioned he invented the Nash Equilibrium among other things, but we never get to know what it truly means. Once again, Wikipedia resolved the problem.
I think the movie did well as a biography though, and I even saw two copies of the Swedish king and queen! ...I think. They looked very similar regardless.
It was a touching movie, but it could have been a little deeper. I didn't even understand Charles was his "best friend" until Dr. Rose mentioned it. As previously mentioned as well, while not maybe plot holes, they were at least holes that could have been filled and fleshed out a little more. While I understand this could have caused the movie to run closer up to 3 hours, I don't see much of a problem if people can have Lord of the Rings and Star Wars marathons
