A Beautiful Mind Turns 25 on December 21, and Ron Howard Made Math Look Like Drama

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A Beautiful Mind opened in US cinemas on December 21, 2001, so it turns 25 this month. Ron Howard directed it, and Russell Crowe plays John Nash, the mathematician who won a Nobel Prize and spent years fighting schizophrenia. The film is loosely based on a biography by Sylvia Nasar.

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Jennifer Connelly plays Alicia, his wife, and she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the part. Her scenes are quiet and steady, and she gives the film its emotional anchor when Nash's world starts to fall apart.

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The film won four Oscars in total, including Best Picture and Best Director for Howard. Its structure makes a complicated illness easy to follow without turning it into a puzzle box, and that is harder than it looks.

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Plenty of people have complained that the film makes Nash's real life too tidy, and that is a fair point. Still, it does a good job of showing how the numbers and the hallucinations feel the same from inside his head, and Crowe does the hard part with restraint.

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Which scene stays with you most? I think about the quiet moments at home more than the big set pieces, because that is where the film is most honest.