film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Rosamund Pike is perfection in this intellectual romance, an unsentimental portrait of a woman striving to be appreciated for her mind at a time even more anti-woman than today. Feminist and flinty.
With more sexy baths than any movie about a male scientist has ever seen, this biopic undermines the battle Curie fought to be taken seriously that is depicted here.
Ladies: Are you tired that all the commercially available Halloween costumes for us are sexy-whatevers?
UPDATED: It’s turning out to be a much busier screening week than I expected. I’ve added two movies: The Boys Are Back (opens in the U.S. on September 25, and in the U.K. on January 15, 2010), starring Clive Owen as an Australian single dad, and Broken Embraces (opened in the U.K. on August 28; … more…
So whaddaya know? Ron Howard and Russell Crowe rode the short bus all to the way to the Oscars by playing the ‘we made a sensitive film about the mentally ill’ card. Which is complete crap, of course. *A Beautiful Mind* is pure made-for-Hollywood pap about the mentally ill in which schizophrenia is treated by Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman the way doctors used to treat it in the bad old days before we (some of us, anyway) were enlightened about diseases of the brain: Hey, snap out of it! Get over it! It’s all in your head!
Toss a coin: Which do you prefer: A Heartwarming(TM) tale of one man’s triumph over mental illness? Or one director’s biting off more than he can chew and falling rather flat on his face? Or one more mostly terrific performance from Crowe? No need to look for a three-sided coin — you get all three in A Beautiful Mind.
