Beautiful Mind, A

"A Beautiful Mind" is a terrible thing to waste.

Forgive that awful and possibly inexcusable wordplay, but the fascinating, true-life story of troubled, Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. deserves better treatment than it receives from this oddly unaffecting, yet highly glossy drama.

It's as if the filmmakers — director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman — didn't believe audiences would respond to a more faithful adaptation of Sylvia Nasar's best-selling biography or to the film's solid cast, which features some past and present Oscar winners and nominees.

So they've contrived a largely fictionalized version that glosses over several important events, favoring some wildly speculative situations. It's also a film that gives only the tiniest insights into its main character.

Nash, played with a certain showiness by Oscar winner Russell Crowe, is first shown in 1947, when the West Virginian-bred intellectual enters Princeton University as a graduate student.

His reputation as brilliant but arrogant proceeds him, though, and his apparent lack of "people skills" lead him to associate more with his roommate (Paul Bettany, from "A Knight's Tale") than fellow grad students.

Still, he is able to achieve a breakthrough in his economic theory — something that scores him a fellowship at MIT, and which helps him win the heart of a beautiful student, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly).

It also lands him a top-secret position as a codebreaker — helping a shadowy government agent (Ed Harris). But under increasing pressure, John grows paranoid, and Alicia begins fearing that may be symptomatic of a more serious mental illness.

Veteran scribe Goldsman's script contains a certain amount of "X-Files" conspiracy that doesn't quite jibe with the personal drama. Saddled with that, Howard uses sledgehammer approach to bludgeon home points that should have been presented more subtly.

As for Crowe, his performance might seem better, more credible, if he didn't appear to be imitating Fred Gwynne's Herman Munster character in certain places.

And as good as the ever-improving Connelly is here, her role is severely underwritten. Ditto for Harris, wasted in a go-nowhere part.

"A Beautiful Mind" is rated PG-13 for violence (tantrums, as well as some gunfire), occasional use of profanity, drug content (use of tranquilizers), use of crude sexual slang, brief gore, brief simulated sex and use of some ethnic slurs. Running time: 127 minutes.

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E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com