Easily, the best movie released in 2001!! I know, I know. We're showing the release date of this movie as 2002, but that is its GENERAL release. The premiere and limited release were in December 2001.
Russell Crowe (John Nash) gives an absolutely astonishing performance as the brilliant, awkwardly confident mathematician who descends into mental illness. I would not place his performance above F. Murray Abraham's performance in Amadeus, but it is one of the best in Hollywood history. It doesn't matter that Crowe appeared utterly humorless while accepting the Academy Award for Best Actor in Gladiator and came across as arrogantly full of himself, he's probably just misunderstood (like John Nash) more so than most method actors.
This movie, however, would not have soared without the contribution and strong performance of Jennifer Connelly (Alicia Nash). Alicia Nash must be a special person in her own right. This movie isn't just about lionizing a brilliant mathematician who battles paranoid-schizophrenia. Alicia Nash remembered those oft-forgotten words: "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health." Indeed, truely, a love story as well. |
(9)
