Director: Ron Howard, Writers: Akiva Goldsman, Sylvia Nasar (book), Stars: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly

I watched this film during my exam period. Ah, talk about timely reminder and inspiration. A Beautiful Mind (2001) is loosely based on the biography book of the Nobel Prize Winner mathematician, John Nash. In this film, John Nash (Russell Crowe) is a co-scholar of the prestigious Carnegie Scholarship for mathematics with Martin Hansen (Josh Lucas) but was depicted as socially inept person. He was constantly giving himself immense pressure to find the “truly original idea” to distinguish himself from others in the competitive world of academia. And Nash finally succeeded when one day an incident in bar inspired him to look over Adam Smith’s governing dynamic: ”Every man for himself” and came up with a cooperative method in game theory which is now known as – “Nash Equilibrium”. This secures a place for Nash at the highly sought after, Wheeler lab – the MIT military think tank. It all went well for John Nash until it was slowly revealed in the aftermath episode of delusional Nash secretly works for secret government agency that he suffered from schizophrenia and the people and event from it are existed only in his mind.

A Beautiful Mind has an interesting storyline even though it was based loosely on a real biography. It revolved around Nash’s mind. Who would have thought that the very same mind which secured a prestigious scholarship and sent Nash to the MIT think tank would turned out to create a fantasized scenario to search pattern out of nowhere. And in the end, it was also Nash’s minds which resolves and overcomes the delusion by ignoring the existence of the imaginary characters.

The schizophrenia was well implemented where audience are only informed after the half point mark in the film and was kept in the suspense throughout Nash’s code breaking adventure.

This film also did a great job in raising awareness for schizophrenia victim. It shows that the schizophrenia illness can fall upon anyone. And in this case it is our mathematics genius – John Nash. Also, it shows that if the illness could possibly went unnoticed and worsened.

Dr. Rosen: Imagine if you suddenly learned that the people, the places, the moments most important to you were not gone, not dead, but worse, had never been. What kind of hell would that be?

Some food for thought as well:  Is schizophrenia the by-effect of such great minds? Or was it the root cause of the brilliance?

The only other film which I have seen Russell Crowe casted in is the Les Misérables (2012). In Les Misérables, there are some critics on his musical performance. But to me, the film and acting was good as it wasn’t easy to do what they have done, bearing in mind that it was done without lip-syncing. Back to A Beautiful Mind, I think his performance of schizophrenia victim was great with all the subtle details. Especially the second half of the film, after he was diagnosed with the illness, he was totally transformed into another personality (literally) who has low confidence level and lacked focus.

The only part which feels a bit weird to me is the relationship between Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) and Nash. I love the ending emotional performance by Alicia where she stood by Nash but at the same time having all the emotional rage pent up inside her. However, I am not quite convinced on their relationship during starting stage. It felt a bit premature as the buildup relationship is a bit short and rushed which does not justified for their strong ending relationship. Not to mention, the cheesy star drawing scene.

As Nash precisely put it: “Classes will dull your mind, destroy the potential for authentic creativity.’ Here’s to my time-off even though I have an exam tomorrow. Be right back while I go grabbed my booze.

Nash: Classes will dull your mind, destroy the potential for authentic creativity.