This is the movie that made me have a top twenty instead of just a top ten. This film was basically declared Best Picture about two months before its release when the hype started to generate. Not that it isn’t a great movie, but I like to make my own decision about what movies should be considered for the Best Picture award rather than told which films to choose from by the studios. I believe this is definitely one of the best films of the year, but if the Academy voters had not been told that this was the best film of the year, it’s possible they may never have nominated it. Nonetheless, there were certainly worse films that could have won Best Picture and this is ultimately an entertaining and thought-provoking film. Russell Crowe, the golden boy of Hollywood, stars as real-life mathematical genius John Nash who becomes a pioneer of economic theory but begins to descend into paranoid schizophrenia. He also falls in love with a student, Jennifer Connelly, along the way and it is her love that carries him through his illness as he struggles with it throughout his life. Crowe’s performance is great as always and was certainly worthy of the Best Actor Oscar (which ultimately went to Denzel Washington for Training Day, an equally worthy performance). This film does a great job of showing what it is like to be a paranoid schizophrenic and the mental stress that it can put one through. This film misses my top ten because ultimately I felt that it could have said more than it did about the struggles of life and it passed up on opportunities for visual and stylistic originality. The film was done very straightforward for the most part, even though the subject matter calls for a more interpretive approach to Nash’s view of reality. The film fell just short of its potential to be a true classic among films but it is certainly a very entertaining and well acted film and is a must see for all movie fans.