Our look at some of Ron Howard's best movie continues as we edge closer to the release of In The Heart of the Sea - which will hit the big screen at the end of the week.
A Beautiful Mind
We have already looked back over one Howard and Russell Crowe collaboration - in the form of the fantastic Cinderella Man - and now we look at another, in the form of the fantastic A Beautiful Mind.
Hard to believe, but it was 2002 when A Beautiful Mind was released and we were treated to another character driven Ron Howard movie and a stunning performance from Crowe - who had not long since won a Best Actor Oscar for Gladiator.
The biopic movie sees Crowe take on the role of brilliant mathematician John Nash and is inspired by the book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar. The movie follows Nash as he graduates from Princeton University but starts to develop paranoid schizophrenia and delusional episodes that threaten to derail his career and his family.
Crowe is simply fantastic as Nash in A Beautiful Mind and should have been a performance that earnt him his second Oscar; he was nominated, but perhaps his off-screen behaviour at the time did cost him the gong.
The audience really does go on a powerful, intense, and moving journey with Crowe as Nash, a tortured genius who struggles to tell the different between reality and fantasy as his schizophrenia and delusions take hold.
While the movie isn't a step by step biopic of Nash's life, it is a complex and touching look at mental illness and the impact it has on the individual and those around them.
Jennifer Connelly takes on the role Alicia Nash, who stands by John during thick and thin and gives a wonderfully strong and emotional performance as she battles to protect her husband. There is a great chemistry between Crowe and Connelly and it is this relationship that truly pushes this film forward.
A Beautiful Mind is as much a love story as it is a film that explores mental illness - I love the balance that Howard strikes between these two very complex themes.
This remains one of Howard's best movies and he really brings the best out of his cast - especially Crowe and Jennifer Connelly; who I would love to see reunite and work together again on a future project.
A Beautiful Mind was met well by the critics and went on to enjoy box office success when it was released in 2002. The movie went on to be nominated for eight Oscars and won four; Best Picture Best Director for Howard, Best Supporting Actress for Connelly and Best Adapted Screenplay.
In The Heart of the Sea is released 26th December.
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