Despite the terrible title, and the presence of my least-favorite actress who has ever walked the Planet Earth, I do want to see this movie. I’m a huge Russell Crowe fan. I had a ton of problems with Beautiful Mind, despite the goodness of the acting. Normally, I don’t care when biographies of real people are semi-fictionalized, or humanized … but with Beautiful Mind I did mind. Oh, so … the power of love cures SCHIZOPHRENIA? No. That’s not how it happened with John Nash. Also, to just leave out his homosexuality seemed supremely dishonest. And also: less interesting. This was a man who had schizophrenia, who could barely get through the day, who had multiple homosexual love affairs – he loved young boys – not TOO young, not Michael Jackson young – but his pleasure in youth was aesthetic, and he had many love affairs with gorgeous college-age Adonises. And despite all of that – his wife stuck by him. To me, that’s a far more interesting story. How can you leave that out?? Also, his speech at the Nobel ceremony was nothing like the one in the speech, which was basically a tribute to the love of his wife. It was too schmaltzy, too contrived. After he decided to try to lick the schizophrenia without drugs, things got so bad between his wife that they separated for many MANY years. Finally, she felt bad enough that she took him back in – but only as a boarder. She decided that she could be the safe haven for this man who had once been her husband. She cooked for him, gave him a place to stay, she did his laundry … and in so doing, kept the wolf of madness at bay. He didn’t have to worry about a roof over his head. He walked every day to Princeton, and hung out in the library. This was a marriage in name only. But I still find it extraordinary. What this woman DID for him. It was out of love, of course. But not the romantic love portrayed in the movie. It was out of a sense of wifely duty and compassion. But in the movie, it was romantic, passionate … and much more simplistic. I was annoyed. I couldn’t get past all they were leaving OUT, because it seemed that what they left out was FAR more interesting.
But anyway, I’ll shut up now.
Cinderella Man looks cheesy in the same way, but here is a review by David Edelstein (I absolutely love his reviews).
He opens with a paragraph of such honesty:
One of the dangers of being a movie critic is losing touch with the part of you that is not too jaded to cry buckets at a tear-jerkeryour inner sap. Or maybe that’s one of the benefitsit depends. In any event, my inner sap was rising as I watched Cinderella Man (Universal). It’s schmaltzybut it’s schmaltz veined with foie gras. It’s directed by Ron Howard, produced by Brian Grazer, and co-written by Akiva Goldsman (with Cliff Hollingsworth), the team that brought you A Beautiful Mind. In that blockbuster Oscar-grabber, Howard and Goldsman shamelessly distorted the facts of their subject’s life and charted a schizophrenia that exists only in movies, with tidy borders between fantasy and reality and a recurring cast of Imaginary Friends. But the film was structured so ingeniously, and Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly were so vivid, that it would have taken a stronger man than me to keep the sap down. My disgust was retroactive.
Mine was, too. I watched the movie, I loved it, I got sucked in to the power of the two main performances … and afterwards, I started to think: “Wait a second. That was BULL shit.”
But listen to his words on Russell Crowe. It’s marvelous.
But, as in A Beautiful Mind, there is Russell Crowe, and what a mesmerizing dude he has become. In every performance his physique, posture, and rhythms change. His Braddock is tender, with a lopsided grin, appraising eyes, and a head with a slight bobblefrom dodging punches, maybe, but also suggestive of a Haymaker’s Jig. There’s something of the archetypal happy-go-lucky (cinematic) Irishman about himand that’s fine: The way he stylizes the performance lightens the bathos.
Miss Z. doesn’t come off so well:
Renée Zellweger’s Mae is less inventive. She has a twittery-trembly voice, a primly set mouth, and eyes so squinched they almost vanish into her dumpling cheeks.
But I also am SO PLEASED to see that Bruce McGill – one of my favorite character actors EVER – his performance in The Insider almost steals the entire movie – is getting some props.
Edelstein writes:
And there’s an eerier antagonist: boxing kingpin Jimmy Johnston (Bruce McGill), a chill, immaculately tailored capitalist pig who casts Braddock out of boxing and only lets him back in when Gould convinces him it’s good for the bottom line. Does McGill play more loathsome parts than any man alive? I’d love to see him in a few more sympathetic roles, like the one he played in The Legend of Bagger Vance.
Bruce McGill is an absolutely marvelous actor. A giant talent.
I am glad that I knew nothing about John Nash’s life before watching beautiful mind. I think knowing that it was a load of bull would have taken away a lot of the movie for me. Much the same way that movies that are based on books I have read tend to drive me crazy.
Yeah – I don’t mind if a movie consolidates different characters, for length purposes … or skips over something that I might find interesting – but isn’t all that cinematic.
But Beautiful Mind is fiction, not biography. Not that it’s not a good movie, but it is not the life of John Nash.
It would be like making Ray and completely leaving out the heroin part.
I’ve never seen Beautiful Mind.. I likes me some Crowe though – Master and Commander gets mucho viewings.
Did you read the NYT review of Cinderella Man? Was it just me or did the reviewer come off as insufferably feckin’ smug?
Yeah, I did read it. I could barely get past the:
“He doesn’t wave his flag as vigorously as …”
He says that like it’s a BAD thing.
Feck off.
“My disgust was retroactive.”
I love that line.
isn’t that hilarious?
I so know that feeling.
And the assumption that anyone who boxes is dumb. Yup, I bet that critic knows loads about boxing.
I gripe, therefore I am.
I like Edelstein because he admits that it might be nostalgic, or sentimental – but that there’s something in him that can get sucked into it anyway – if it’s well done.
Spoken like a true fan of movies.
Also his descriptions of the boxing scenes alone make me want to see it.
You’d think after Raging Bull you wouldn’t need to see another boxing match … but these sound amazing as well.
I just read the review at the NYT. Wow. What shitty, pretentious writing.
Totally. Blech.
Sheila, I have been reading your blog for nearly a year now and I only have one question – What exactly are your feelings about Renée Zellweger? You always seem so strangely guarded about revealing your thoughts about her.
I know Dan, right? I’m really really reserved on the topic of that scrunchy-faced phony beeyotch.
Beautiful Mind was a great movie, but so far off, as you say. I went to see it with my best friend, who has 3 sisters that suffer from schzophrenia. She was SO upset at that portrayal of this awful disease. We just sat there afterward, her crying, me comforting. She was like “its not like that. you cant just DEAL with schzophrenia. It doesnt just go away if you try hard enough”. They left out a good portion of his experience. We were concerned that people might get the idea that if one is strong minded enough, one can overcome this illness alone, without meds. Realistically, though, its not possible.
LB: All 3 sisters? Oh my God. How sad.
I’m such an ass, but I have to say, I HATE Zelwegger SOOOOO much, I can’t bear to see this. She ruined Chicago for me. I sat there through that movie mumbling like a crack addict. Chrisanne almost killed me.
I can’t do it. I just can’t.
Alex – you know how I feel about her. She actually makes me ANGRY. hahahaha
Like Jewel makes me angry.
Like Patrick Dempsey (of all people) used to make me angry.
I need to get a life.
Sheila – They were half sisters, kids from her dad’s first marriage to a schizo. They were older when she was born, but right at that breaking point. She has some stories…..
Patrick Dempsey????? thats a new one for me!!!
Patrick Dempsey used to drive me so crazy I couldn’t talk about him really without going nuts. When he played Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment? I thought my head would explode at the wrong-ness of it.
Patrick Dempsey? (giggle – snort).
Dan –
I know. He used to make me CRAZY. And not in a good way. I wanted to smack him.
I’m more angry at Tommy right now, but even with Tommy there’s a sense of sadness. He’s sick, and he’s getting sicker. With Zelwegger, I’m so MAD at her, every time I see her, I want to punch her in the heart.