A Beautiful Mind (2001)

A Beautiful Mind is the story that is based on the life of famous greatest American
mathematician named John Forbes Nash Jr. who is portrayed by Russell Crowe an excellent
actor and his wife Alicia is portrayed by Jennifer Connelly who have won many awards. This
movie was produced in 2001 that is inspired by the biographical novel “A Beautiful Mind”
which was written by Sylvia Nasar.
The movie creates a timeline of John Nash’s life that begins when he enters graduate
school at Princeton university to study mathematics, the school are full of conceited young men
that is competing or belittling each other, Nash is socially awkward he had a hard time
understanding in how to behave in intrapersonal social situation, and lack of ability to socialize
with other people, he is known as the mysterious west Virginian genius, he has extreme
intelligence but he is belittled the most, Nash said that he don’t like people much and they don’t
like him, he is arrogant and showing apathy towards others that make it hard for him to make
friends, he had no one except for his roommate Charles who he always hangout and have a
conversation with, this is where the early symptoms of schizophrenia begin to appear, it is the
delusions of grandeur, it is when you believe that you are more superior than the other people it
is mistook as genius act.
John had been spending hours and days scribbling equations on his window to come up
with an original idea to make a name in order to secure his placement, he’s fellow classmate
thought he already drop out, what he said is that attending classes will dull your mind, that
destroy the potential for authentic creativity but Nash failed to come up with a brilliant
idea while his classmate written paper had been published he is still searching, and his professor
said that his record doesn’t guarantee any placement at all, this is where another symptoms
appeared is when john reduced his daily activities and neglecting one’s own hygiene and
withdrawal from the social world. Until he finds himself in a bar with his course mates,
contemplating a glamorous blonde woman and her four less enchanting brunette friends, that’s
when Nash realized something, Adam smith has the idea of the wealth of nations where he said
individual need to fulfill self-interest in order to gain societal benefit, what is known as the
"invisible hand" but Nash come up with the idea that the interests of the group are best served by
each of its members taking into account of one another's decisions as well as his own self-interest
because of this idea Nash professor said that with this theory he will get any placement he like.
Everything seems to be perfect and going on his way he had a job and a wonderful wife Alicia
who helps him find the heart to feel something to be in love, Alicia is one of his student, she is
shown as a strong woman who stay by Nash side to get through his illness, she was attracted to
Nash genius mind and is touched by his loneliness, she gladly accept Nash lack of awareness in
social cues and his eccentric and obsessive tendencies towards work and solving equation, he is
also very straightforward that some people are offended by his behavior but Alicia find it
attractive, they got married and Alicia got pregnant with their child and that’s when Nash illness
become apparent.
 It turns out that John Nash have been experiencing hallucinations where sensations
appear to be real but are created within his mind, his first schizophrenic hallucination was his
prodigal roommate Charles who is supposedly a graduate student majoring English, charles is his
only friend and being an outcast could have encouraged him to start his delusions, to feel less
isolated and to cope with stress and loneliness and the other one was Charles niece marcee a
young little girl and his most dangerous hallucination is William parcher “big brother” a
member of the department of defense, this is where his hallucinations begin to influence his
delusion he start to believe that he work for the department of defense and that he is a secret
agent who is trying to stop the Russians by code breaking periodicals and Nash being involved in
complex mathematical algorithms and subsequent job affect his delusion of code breaking for the
government, John Nash has a delusion called persecutory delusion it is the belief that someone or
something is chasing and going to hurt you, he believes that parcher and other spies are after him
for breaking the agreement to work with them. The other symptoms was disorganized thinking
which affect the way he speak where he rapidly switching thoughts that shows throughout the
film such as when he begins to find patterns where no patterns even exist and when his office is
thickly papered with countless bits torn from newspapers and magazines and connected by
frantic lines into imaginary patterns and the negative symptoms shows when he was taking
medication he was prescribed and going under electroshock therapy 5 times a week could have
given him abolition which decrease his motivation, hope and will to get better and he had a hard
time solving problems or coming up with a solution or equation, he blame his medication for not
being able to respond to his wife, help around the house, take care of their baby and having a job,
that’s why he decided to stop taking his medication, his psychiatrist Dr.Rosen work with him to
make him understand that his delusion and hallucination weren’t real. After his colleague found
out about his illness they encourage him to continue to come to Princeton to associate with other
people to help him go back to having a normal life, they showed respect for his career, they try to
understand him and allowed him to stay on campus and teach. John was unable to cure his illness
he still saw the hallucinations and he was living with it, but was able to ignore them.
A beautiful mind enlightened the audience about what it is like to go through life with
schizophrenia that shows us an accurate example and educate every individual by bringing a
visual perspective to what hallucinations and delusions can look and feel like to the person who
is experiencing this illness, despite of john Nash illness he had an amazing and extraordinary
life, I was fascinated by John Nash life of what he had gone through, all the obstacle, struggles
and difficulties he still choose to fight. John Nash is a great example that mental illness is
something to be understood and treated rather than feared, and finally all of his hard work had
paid off Nash won the Nobel Prize in economics for their work on game theory, that most
economist used that gave a huge contribution up to now, during his speech he look at Alicia and
said I have made the most important discovery of my career and that is "It's only in the
mysterious equations of love that any logical reasons can be found."