A Beautiful Mind is a remarkable movie.

Director Ron Howard has crafted a film that takes the viewer on a mesmerizing journey into the mind, heart and soul of a tortured genius.

Akiva Goldsman's in-sightful and heartfelt screenplay was inspired by the life of John Forbes Nash Jr., who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for a theory which revolutionized modern economics.

Nash's accomplishments are all the more astonishing because he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

This is difficult and taxing subject matter to weave into a compelling, emotionally blistering drama, but that is what Howard and Goldsman have done.

A Beautiful Mind is part taut psychological mystery, part gripping human drama and part stirring love story.

A Beautiful Mind works on all these levels because of Russell Crowe's powerhouse central performance as a man at the mercy of his delusions.

He is a true chameleon who disappears into his characters.

It is an extraordinary performance because Crowe takes Nash through 40 years from eager university student to seasoned professor.

Nash went to Princeton University on a scholarship.

He was a bright, handsome loner with few social skills who secretly and desperately wanted acceptance, recognition and love.

Nash's roommate Charles (Paul Bettany) was his antithesis. Brash, outgoing and carefree, Charles gave Nash the acceptance he sought.

After graduation when he began teaching at MIT, Nash received the recognition he craved when he was recruited by the shadowy and enigmatic William Parcher (Ed Harris) to be a code breaker for the Department of Defence.

It was a secret mission that required Nash to read as many American magazines and newspapers as possible to find the messages being sent to Russian spies working within America.

Nash's greatest fortune was the unswerving, passionate love of Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly), a physics student who was as beautiful as she was brilliant.

In the end, Nash's mind proved too fragile to live in both the world of international intrigue and the world of lectures, diapers and Sunday family dinners.

This film is as carefully crafted as Crowe's performance is nuanced, setting the audience up for an utterly shocking twist that is every bit as unsettling and devastating as those in The Sixth Sense and The Others.

A Beautiful Mind is one of those rare films that delivers far more than it promises through its ads and trailers.

Don't talk to anyone who has seen it so you can experience all the joy, suspense, romance, horror and surprises it has to offer.

Crowe will assuredly and deservedly be nominated for a best actor Oscar for a performance that resonates with truth and compassion.

Connelly shows what incredible heroism it took for Alicia not to abandon Nash and that is no easy task given that Crowe is such a charismatic, commanding presence on screen.

A Beautiful Mind is unquestionably one of the best films of the year because it proves to be as moving and entertaining as it is insightful, challenging and brave.

It is moviemaking at its finest because it plays as powerfully and effectively to the heart as it does the mind.

(This film is rated PG)

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