A Beautiful Mind Reviews
Christian Science Monitor
Russell Crowe is a sensational actor who can apparently do anything he sets his own beautiful mind to, and he brilliantly portrays Nash from college days to retirement age.
It isn't the device that's so crude, but the execution, which turns Nash's persecutory demons into nuisances that won't leave us alone.
Crowe pulls out the stops, but he looks too bullish and controlled for such a pitiable victim.
The result is mainstream moviemaking at its highest, most satisfying level.
Matt's Movie Reviews
Cynics will hate it, but others will rightfully see it as a great cinematic accomplishment which is backed by excellent performances, great direction, a moving score and exquisite cinematography.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Common Sense Media
Oscar-winning biopic is too intense for tweens.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Suite101.com
Crowe, Goldsman and Howard aren't trying to solicit love or tears for John Nash, as detractors bitterly claimed. "A Beautiful Mind" sought only acknowledgement of the silent, invisible and brave struggle that so many with mental illnesses endure each day.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Consistently engrossing as an unusual character study and as a trip to the mysterious border-crossing between rarified brilliance and madness.
eFilmCritic.com
I can't deny how solidly it's crafted, how well-acted, and, wonder of wonders, how intelligently written and directed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Big Picture Big Sound
I particularly enjoyed the fact that Nash comes across as quite fallible in the film despite his attempts at perfection. His character in the film is as unpredictable as I would expect the real Nash to be.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Guardian [UK]
Unfortunately, as the picture goes on, the haunting of Nash by figments of his troubled mind becomes a trifle simplistic.
Director Ron Howard's deftness in suggesting the subjective experience of Crowe's character, who's later diagnosed with schizophrenia, makes for inspirational narrative, but certain plot points are so reductive.
EmanuelLevy.Com
Despite serious omissions from Nash's real-life (homosexuality, anti-Semitism), Ron Howard's middlebrow treament of the subject makes for an enjoybale film largely due to the compelling performances of Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
Empire Magazine
If this were fiction, it would be an example of superior storytelling, and it's certainly gripping.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Cinema Sight
A pedestrian film with a rudimentary script that forces the actors to create believability where there might otherwise be none.
| Original Score: 2/4
Time Out
Top CriticAt its most effective when it seems to lose the plot in a scrambled second act that posits the Cold War as a collective paranoid delusion, the film reverts to type (and to fact) for a sentimental anti-climax.
Looking Closer
It presents itself as a biography of the flesh-and-blood John Nash. And in fact, it is really only a flashy, sentimental Hollywood movie, inspired by a few particular details of the John Nash story.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Oregon Herald
In every facet, it should have an automatic date with Oscar.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
