A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Russell Crowe and Ron Howard make for quite a formidable partnership in this biopic of the acclaimed mathematician John Nash. Like so many folk with an acute scientific ability, his social skills bordered on the wrong side of inept and a combination of his good looks and his superiority complex soon lead him to a life that vacillates between the extremely happy and the downright depressing. There are maybe two people in his life whom he has made some sort of connection with. His Princeton college "Charles" (Paul Bettany) and the exceptionally patient "Alicia" (Jennifer Connelly) whom he met whilst teaching her and whom he eventually marries. Meantime, his brainpower has attracted the attention of Uncle Sam, and that's when he meets "Parcher" (Ed Harris) who embroils him in a plan to crack some top secret Soviet codes. The enemy also knows he's been drafted in to help and so he is soon a target for their assassins and their network of fifth columnists too. A combination of his own inherent insecurities and this way more palpable threat lead Nash to a paranoia that threatens to destroy himself and everything he holds dear. It's also a testament to Howard's direction that he manages to create quite a menacing character from the usually charming Christopher Plummer, whose "Rosen" is a dab hand with an hypodermic. Crowe is at his best here, his portrayal of this frankly rather selfish and obnoxious man is almost perfect and though I can't say I ever liked the character, nor felt especially sorry for his predicaments, I did feel invested in just how he could emerge from the internal conflicts he faced unsure of what was true and what was not. A bare minimum of romance to clutter it up and both Harris and Connelly contributing well to a story of a flawed yet brilliant human being makes this well worth a few hours.