A Beautiful Mind or Una Mente Brillante in Spanish, is about the life of John Nash, the mathematical genius, a legend in real life at the age of thirty when he fell into schizophrenia and who, thanks to the selfless devotion of his wife and the continued patronage of the mathematical community, emerged after a mad life to win a Nobel Prize in 1994 and be acclaimed worldwide.
The film, based on the biographical style book and which has won the praise of hundreds, is already the winner of several prestigious awards, including the National Critical Circle of Biography Books and the Pulitzer Prize of Biography. Now, the book is an important film that has already won the Oscar.
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In this article you will find:
What is the movie about?
It stars Russell Crowe as Nash, and Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Alicia, who is pregnant with her child when the first symptoms of her illness become apparent.
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He tells the story of a man whose mind rendered an enormous service to humanity and, at the same time, betrayed him with dire illusions. Crowe brings the character to life by avoiding sensationalism and constructing with small details of behavior.
He shows a man who descends into madness and then unexpectedly regains the ability to function in academia. Nash has been compared to Newton, Mendel and Darwin, but he too was for many years a man who muttered to himself in a corner.
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Director Ron Howard is able to suggest a core of goodness in Nash that inspired his wife and others to to support him, to hold out hope and, in his words in his darkest hour, to "believe that something extraordinary is possible".
Nash from the film begins as a quiet but arrogant young man with a West Virginia accent, who He gradually becomes a tortured and secretive paranoid who believes that he is a spy hunted by agents of the government. Crowe, who has an uncanny knack for modifying his appearance to suit a role, always seems compelling as a man aged 47 years during the movie.
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Analysis
Although the film may not be a totally accurate depiction of John Nash's disability, it does help paint an accurate depiction of schizophrenia. In the film, Nash's schizophrenia appears when he is in his early 20s, and this is the typical age when symptoms of the Schizophrenia begin to manifest in people, however symptoms did not begin for Nash until he was in his early 30s years.
These symptoms are put into effect at the beginning of the movie when Charles appears and also when John is speaking with the other graduate students, although the cognitive symptoms do not appear until other key scenes in the movement. He does not speak much and when he does he is not with much emotion, which can be attributed to the onset of his disability. However, although the symptoms are accurate, John never had delusional figures like Charles, he suffered mainly from auditory delusions.
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In general, the beginning helps to accurately introduce several key attributes of schizophrenia while trying to keep an accurate history. although the cognitive symptoms do not appear until other key scenes in the movement.
He does not speak much and when he does he is not with much emotion, which can be attributed to the onset of his disability. However, although the symptoms are accurate, John never had delusional figures like Charles, he suffered mainly from auditory delusions.
After being released from the mental hospital, John attempted to resume his normal life and his mathematical research. However, she was asked to take medication to help treat his disability symptoms and this presented her with a problem. By taking his medication, he claims that he could not think freely and therefore made little or no progress in investigating him. As a result, John stops taking his medication so he can think better.
This costs him a lot, as shortly after stopping his medication, he becomes delusional. John is bathing his baby the day after his wife went out to the backyard to hang clothes. She realizes something is wrong and then runs inside to find her baby nearly drowning while John has a schizophrenic episode.
After his relapse, John is faced with the decision that he will have to return to the mental hospital and take medications, which will make it difficult for him to research or he will be able to learn to cope with his disability so that he can do what he loves: the maths. He can return to Princeton and agrees to work outside of the library. As he began working at Princeton, he had yet to learn to deal with his delusions in a new environment, which turned out to be difficult but manageable. It is during this period of John Nash's life that he was able to resume his research and when he won the Nobel Prize in Economics for the work he did for his dissertation.
Conclution
After watching this movie, analyzing the details of key scenes and reading multiple online reviews and even reviews of the real John Forbes Nash Jr., I have come to the conclusion that this film can accurately portray the complexities of schizophrenia to the audience. Although the scenes may not always accurately represent what specifically happened to John Nash, they still show ideas and facts about schizophrenia.
Russell Crowe's performance was great and helped enlighten the audience on what it's like to live life with schizophrenia. However, I believe that John Nash's schizophrenia case is very unusual and deviates greatly from what the average schizophrenic individual will encounter.
The film also incorporated all the correct viewpoints and science that was known in the 1950s and 1960 that helps give the audience an authentic insight into what was known about a mental disability such as schizophrenia.
Overall, I think this movie is an excellent and accurate example of what it's like to live with schizophrenia and has the ability to educate people about what is known about this disability.
