A Beautiful Mind (2001), Biography, drama

Director: Ron Howard

Cast

Russell Crowe … John Nash

Jennifer Connelly…Alicia Nash

It’s a biographical drama based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics.

In 1947, John Nash starts his study at Princeton University as a co-recipient of the prestigious Carnegie Scholarship for mathematics and begins an unlikely friendship with his roommate Charles Herman. Later, based on a discussion of how to approach a group of women at bar, he starts to develop and publish a new concept of governing dynamics, which secure his office at MIT. Some years later, Nash is invited to the Pentagon to crack encrypted code from intercepted enemy telecommunication. He then runs into the mysterious William Parcher, who is offering him an assignment, to find a Soviet plot from the patterns in magazines and newspapers. Nash is obsess about looking for patterns and becomes more and more paranoid. He starts causing troubles to himself and his family, with the help from his wife Alicia, he eventually realises both his roommate Charles, Charles’s niece Marcee the mysterious William Parcher exist only in his imagination. He starts to study and teach by the help of an old friend Hansen, and finally receives the Nobel Prize.

I think the key idea behind this movie is the way to show how a schizophrenia would think, act and how he could possibly be sane again. I must admire Ron Howard’s set up; the delusions are as real as reality to John Nash, as it is to all the audience. Crowe’s acting is also remarkable, the elegance in his walk words and voice, cooperate with another amazing actress Jennifer Connelly. I would say this is definitely a masterpiece that is worth watching. 

My favourite quotes

“Nash: Classes will dull your mind; destroy the potential for authentic creativity”

“ Hansen: So how about it, Nash? You’re scared?

Nash: Terrified, mortified, petrified, stupefied, by you”

“Nash: I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I just choose not to include certain appetite; like my appetite for patterns; perhaps my appetite to imagine and to dream”

My personal rating: 10/10

Peng