A Beautiful Mind

I don't normally come on here and recommend movies, but I saw this movie on ABC tonight and it was just extraordinary. I can now understand why it was so critically acclaimed. It's called A Beautiful Mind.

It's a story of a gifted mathmetician who has paranoid schizophrenia. It's a no-holds-barred look into the life of someone who suffers, and yet eventually uses his brilliant gift of logic to manuever his way around his symptoms, eventually achieving the recognition and admiration of his peers.
He even earns a Nobel Prize in the end.

It's a Ron Howard film and it's beautifully told. Hard to watch at times for it's portrayal of the subject's more difficult moments, but it's an amazing look into the topic, treated lovingly and with dignity with excellent writing, acting and photography. I highly recommend it for anyone who has a family member or friend who is touched by this disorder.

one of my favs to .its a true movie and very good but sad at times

Maybe if the ending isn't told...?

I can usually easily find things I don't like about any movie. I didn't even try with A Beautiful Mind. Sure it was a heavy at times but I consider that to be a balanced weight valuable in this clever story.

The first time watching was the best; the second time was good too. I can still be entertained by it maybe once a year. The screenplay had a dynamic that caused me to feel somewhat terrified, mortified, petrified and stupefied.

The movie is even better on one of the cable channels without commercial breaks/censoring. Yes, great movie, and it shows the really fine line between genius and insanity, sometimes a lot finer than many of us are comfortable thinking about.

Got to go now. I have some very important government work to do in my garage... :huh:

jtr1962 said:

Got to go now. I have some very important government work to do in my garage... :huh:

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Ah, so that's where those sounds were coming from. :huh:

I know at least three people in various walks of life that have this particular condition. It was quite a lesson for me to understand just how terrifying it can be to be unsure of what's real and what isn't. I'm guessing Ron Howard must know some sufferers also, In the end I thought it was neat how ther character invented his own discreet coping mechanism, as well as rekindling his interest in teaching to reconnect with something positive and stabilizing in his life.

i think many pople who are highly smart have mental illness cause they think a lot and know more about stuff .lol im just crazy lol .but at least i have a cool hat

I was surprised that in the end of the movie they didn't mention anything about his son. IIRC, he's just like his father. Both brilliant and schizophrenic.

I was actually very ticked-off when my wife purchased the DVD of this white-wash/rewrite of history (typical Hollywood movie). John Nash is not a nice man...

-Bill

Well, they have to make a movie people will like and watch. I don't think folks would be as taken by a story about a creepy mean guy. The biggest thing the movie changed was the way his illness manifested itself. He didn't see people or imagine those folks. I believe it was mostly just voices and paranoia. And he lived with his mother for quite a while.

Just to set the record straight on the Guardian's article referenced in BB's above post...it seems a shame to just casually lump Alan Turing into an article about Nash. Although the Guardian doesn't really say Turing and Nash are similar, their lack of explanation regarding Turing's actions seems to imply that they are. In fact, Alan Turing's 'indiscretions' were uncovered quite by accident during a burglary investigation , not 'George Michael' style. And Turing, considered to be one of the most brilliant mathematical minds ever, was never considered schizophrenic. Sure, Turing had some odd habits, but he was otherwise a fairly private and 'normal' individual, according to various historical sources that reference his work and life. It appears to me (I'm an amateur cryptologist and history buff) that other than brilliance, Turing and Nash had very little in common. Sorry, if a bit O/T, but Turing's service to humanity warranted a bit of clarification, IMHO.

As Aloft said, I was not referencing Alan Turing in any way...

-Bill

Thanks for the info, BB - I didn't know that. Strill, one has to wonder how much of the real Nash's behavior was actually the disorder talking and not him. I'll agree with you that the film was highly romanticized, and perhaps that's the only way to pull peoople into the theaters to watch it. I have to give them credit, however, for portraying the topic in a very humanistic and sympathetic way.

When the movie came out, I actually bought the book and read it first. Partly because it seemed interesting and I had read reviews that Ron Howard had not been quite as honest as the book.

In the end, I liked both. Even in the movie, Nash wasn't very likeable, but he wasn't a bad guy either. The movie skipped over the messier elements of Nash's life to get down to the basic elements, his self recovery from a major brain disorder.

One interesting thing is that I found the real young John and Alicia to be at least as good looking as Russell Crowe and hottie Jennifer Connelly.

Another interesting movie about mental illness, which also contains a lot of documentary info on the DVD is the Aviator with Leonard DiCaprio. He plays the insane but brilliant billionaire Howard Hughes. It's amazing how much Hughes accomplished given his obssesive compulsive disorder. My mother actually worked for Hughes Aircraft for a few years as a systems analyst.

BB said:

As Aloft said, I was not referencing Alan Turing in any way...

-Bill

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Sorry, BB, I should have pointed that out in my post as well. The Guardian article seems to be mostly accurate otherwise . . . thanks for the interesting link.

BB said:

John Nash is not a nice man...

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And I'm willing to bet his wife wasn't as nice as portrayed in the movie, either. If you remember, Alicia was fairly bright herself. Maybe not in Nash's league, but certainly brighter than probably 99% of the population. In general most very bright people aren't "nice". In fact, quite a few can be downright nasty and impatient most of the time. That's just a consequence of living in a world where the majority of people seem slow to you, for lack of a better word. In the end, Hollywood probably had whitewash both characters to make them palatable to the general public, and make the movie work. Even as portrayed in the movie, John Nash wasn't a particularly likeable person, but at least he seemed human enough so that the viewer could sympathize with him. This might not have been so with a completely honest portrayal.