A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind, the film adaptation of the life of John Forbes Nash was released to the public on December 21, 2001. Starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly, the film was nominated for Best Leading Actor, Best Editing, Best Makeup, and Best Score. Ultimately the film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress.

A Beautiful Mind is the honest and heart-rendering story of the Nobel-Prize winning John Nash, a brilliant mathematician more know for his original idea of the equilibrium. But a lesser known fact was brought on by the book written by Sylvia Nasar which preceded the film: John Nash suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and mild depression with low self-esteem.

The movie begins with Nash being accepted into Princeton University, where his genius and bad social skills become very apparent very quickly. When settled into his on-campus room, Nash is surprised to meet his energized and whole-hearted roommate Charles, when he was promised a single room.

Nash is later depicted as refusing to go to the college courses under the claims that the classes do no more than restrict the mind’s creativity, and creativity is exactly what Nash needed to birth his original idea to ensure his legacy: the equilibrium.

Fast forward through the film, and you’ll find Nash racing off in the back-seat of cars, demanding from his Department of Defense employer, William Parcher, just what exactly is going on. You’ll find the genius in the Pentagon, cracking mathematical codes and you’ll even find him in psychiatric hospital, where he receives insulin shock therapy, and is given anti-psychotic medication. And to some degree of surprise, you’ll even find the Phantom of the Fine Hall walking back and forth, from his house to the Princeton University, where he found work as a professor despite the pointed fingers and jeers of the students there.

A Beautiful Mind is indeed, beautiful. Full of anguish and hope, disappointment and victory, it is easily a word of encouragement for those who suffer, and a pat on the back for those who have taken the hard road home.