movie review for the beautiful mind

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The Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash Jr. still teaches at Princeton, and walks to campus every day. That these commonplace statements nearly brought tears to my eyes suggests the power of "A Beautiful Mind," the story of a man who is one of the greatest mathematicians, and a victim of schizophrenia. Nash's discoveries in game theory have an impact on our lives every day. He also believed for a time that Russians were sending him coded messages on the front page of the New York Times.

"A Beautiful Mind" stars Russell Crowe as Nash, and Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Alicia, who is pregnant with their child when the first symptoms of his disease become apparent. It tells the story of a man whose mind was of enormous service to humanity while at the same time betrayed him with frightening delusions. Crowe brings the character to life by sidestepping sensationalism and building with small behavioral details. He shows a man who descends into madness and then, unexpectedly, regains the ability to function in the academic world. Nash has been compared to Newton, Mendel and Darwin, but was also for many years just a man muttering to himself in the corner.

Director Ron Howard is able to suggest a core of goodness in Nash that inspired his wife and others to stand by him, to keep hope and, in her words in his darkest hour, "to believe that something extraordinary is possible." The movie's Nash begins as a quiet but cocky young man with a West Virginia accent, who gradually turns into a tortured, secretive paranoid who believes he is a spy being trailed by government agents. Crowe, who has an uncanny ability to modify his look to fit a role, always seems convincing as a man who ages 47 years during the film.

The early Nash, seen at Princeton in the late 1940s, calmly tells a scholarship winner "there is not a single seminal idea on either of your papers." When he loses at a game of Go, he explains: "I had the first move. My play was perfect. The game is flawed." He is aware of his impact on others ("I don't much like people and they don't much like me") and recalls that his first-grade teacher said he was "born with two helpings of brain and a half-helping of heart." It is Alicia who helps him find the heart. She is a graduate student when they meet, is attracted to his genius, is touched by his loneliness, is able to accept his idea of courtship when he informs her, "Ritual requires we proceed with a number of platonic activities before we have sex." To the degree that he can be touched, she touches him, although often he seems trapped inside himself; Sylvia Nasar , who wrote the 1998 biography that informs Akiva Goldsman's screenplay, begins her book by quoting Wordsworth about "a man forever voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone." Nash's schizophrenia takes a literal, visual form. He believes he is being pursued by a federal agent ( Ed Harris ), and imagines himself in chase scenes that seem inspired by 1940s crime movies. He begins to find patterns where no patterns exist. One night he and Alicia stand under the sky and he asks her to name any object, and then connects stars to draw it. Romantic, but it's not so romantic when she discovers his office thickly papered with countless bits torn from newspapers and magazines and connected by frantic lines into imaginary patterns.

The movie traces his treatment by an understanding psychiatrist ( Christopher Plummer ), and his agonizing courses of insulin shock therapy. Medication helps him improve somewhat--but only, of course, when he takes the medication. Eventually newer drugs are more effective, and he begins a tentative re-entry into the academic world at Princeton.

The movie fascinated me about the life of this man, and I sought more information, finding that for many years he was a recluse, wandering the campus, talking to no one, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, paging through piles of newspapers and magazines. And then one day he paid a quite ordinary compliment to a colleague about his daughter, and it was noticed that Nash seemed better.

There is a remarkable scene in the movie when a representative for the Nobel committee ( Austin Pendleton ) comes visiting, and hints that he is being "considered" for the prize. Nash observes that people are usually informed they have won, not that they are being considered: "You came here to find out if I am crazy and would screw everything up if I won." He did win, and did not screw everything up.

The movies have a way of pushing mental illness into corners. It is grotesque, sensational, cute, funny, willful, tragic or perverse. Here it is simply a disease, which renders life almost but not quite impossible for Nash and his wife, before he becomes one of the lucky ones to pull out of the downward spiral.

When he won the Nobel, Nash was asked to write about his life, and he was honest enough to say his recovery is "not entirely a matter of joy." He observes: "Without his 'madness,' Zarathustra would necessarily have been only another of the millions or billions of human individuals who have lived and then been forgotten." Without his madness, would Nash have also lived and then been forgotten? Did his ability to penetrate the most difficult reaches of mathematical thought somehow come with a price attached? The movie does not know and cannot say.

(Note: For Nash's autobiographical statement, go to www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1994/nash-autobio.html)

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Rated PG-13 For Intense Thematic Material, Sexual Content and A Scene Of Violence

129 minutes

Judd Hirsch as Helinger

Paul Bettany as Charles

Russell Crowe as John Nash

Jennifer Connelly as Alicia

Ed Harris as Parcher

Christopher Plummer as Dr. Rosen

Based On The Book by

Sylvia Nasar

Directed by

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A Beautiful Mind Reviews

When I think of the phrase “Oscar bait,” an expression I’m honestly not fond of, Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind is the first movie I always think of.

Full Review | Jun 27, 2023

Nash's character is perfectly suited to Crowe's ability to charm and confuse at the same moment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 26, 2021

Its inspirational qualities to read more about the real John Nash (and all the things omitted from this biopic) might be the only lasting effect.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Sep 25, 2020

Howard's A Beautiful Mind works because it is not a film about mental illness, but a film about John Nash.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 2, 2020

Profoundly, exhaustingly mediocre, a fussily overdone bit of mindless prestige filmmaking.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 24, 2019

Granted, it's uplifting to see mental illness portrayed on the screen in a humane fashion and world-class intellectuals elevated to heroic status. But A Beautiful Mind feels contrived from beginning to end, a paint-by-the-numbers biography.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Feb 21, 2019

This is stirring and absorbing stuff.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 21, 2019

As competent, affecting biopics go, Mind won't win any prizes, but you've earned yourself the right for more awards consideration, mate.

Full Review | Feb 19, 2019

A Beautiful Mind isn't really interested in Nash's thoughts, let alone anyone else's.

Ultimately the message is banal and rather repellent: brainwork wrecks your health.

Full Review | Feb 28, 2018

Jennifer Connelly [works]. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 27, 2018

You've gotta hand it to Howard. He and A Beautiful Mind got me (and I bet will get you) interested in this subject for the first time since "new math" ruined it for most of us in high school.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 27, 2018

Crowe is called upon to do not much more than stare solicitously at the heavens, from where inspiration duly arrives, to the accompaniment of some predictably celestial music.

Full Review | Oct 21, 2014

You're well into the story before you can sift the facts from the hallucinations, a process that's made compelling by Russell Crowe's performance in the lead.

The second, idealised, sentimentalised half of the film is torture, as we plod through the routine I'm-here-to-help psychiatrist, the walls plastered with cut-up newspapers and the what-happens-when-he-stops-taking-the-medicine stuff.

The story also comes up with a clever way for Nash to fight his problem: He uses his mind. His illness is a puzzle, after all, and he's good at figuring out puzzles. You'll root for him.

Despite problems of structure and tone, and some crucial omissions from Nash's actual life, A Beautiful Mind has emerged as one of the season's most enjoyable and popular films.

A Beautiful Mind is Howard's best movie, and easily one of the best movies of the year.

Full Review | Feb 4, 2014

A Beautiful Mind is the best film yet from director Howard.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 4, 2014

It's not a crime for the script to gloss over the thornier aspects of Nash's story, but the film seems totally unconvincing, squeezing a real life into a formula that's simultaneously more palatable and less interesting.

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DVD & Streaming

A Beautiful Mind

Content caution.

In Theaters

Russell Crowe as John Nash; Jennifer Connelly as Alicia; Ed Harris as William Parcher; Paul Bettany as Charles Herman; Christopher Plummer as Dr. Rosen; Josh Lucas as Hansen; Judd Hirsch as Professor Helinger

Home Release Date

Distributor.

Universal Pictures

Movie Review

As a graduate student at Princeton in 1947, math whiz John Nash won’t set foot in a classroom for fear of dulling his creative genius. Instead he spends his time scribbling formulas on windowpanes in search of a truly original and revolutionary idea. Nash isn’t the most popular fellow on campus, which is largely his own fault. He admits, “I’m quite well balanced; I have a chip on both shoulders. I don’t like people much and they don’t like me.” But even if moviegoers don’t exactly like this cold fish at the start, we learn to appreciate his quirky intellect. Apparently, so does William Parcher, an agent with the Department of Defense. After Nash experiences his scientific breakthrough and proves himself an expert code-breaker, Parcher enlists him to scour magazines in search of imbedded Soviet messages to operatives threatening to detonate a nuclear warhead on American soil.

It’s now the early 1950s. Nash courts and marries Alicia, a pretty coed who finds even his unromantic technospeak charming. Unable to share the top-secret activities that occupy his mind, he struggles with the secrets he must keep from her. But things come to a head when dark-clad figures close in on Nash during a speaking engagement. It seems the Russians have found him. Claiming to be a psychiatrist eager to help Nash, a man named Dr. Rosen sedates him and commits him to a psychiatric ward. Rosen tells Alicia that her husband is schizophrenic, and that the people and activities consuming his energy are merely fantastic conspiracy theories and paranoid delusions. Are they? Or is Nash a pawn in an intricate Cold War political plot? Despite these uncertainties, Alicia stands by her man to the very end, proving that a beautiful mind is surpassed only by a devoted heart. In Nash’s own words, “The most important discovery of my life . . . is that only in the mysterious equation of love can any logic and reason be found.”

positive elements: Despite being a drinker and womanizer, Nash’s college roommate, Charles, is a faithful companion and constant source of encouragement. A loving uncle, Charles explains that he accepted custody of his young niece when his sister was killed in a car crash. Nash refutes Adam Smith’s law of governing dynamics, suggesting that a group does not always benefit from each member’s selfish ambition, but that cooperation can yield positive benefits for all involved. Taking control of his thought life, Nash states, “Like a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites,” a great (if unintentional) illustration of 2 Corinthians 10:5. Similarly, Charles tells Nash, “Mathematics won’t lead you to higher truth.” Alicia gives her beau a handkerchief for good luck, to which the ever-logical Nash replies, “I don’t believe in luck, but I do believe in assigning value to things” as he pockets the gift. Nash wants to serve his country as a code-breaker, but worries about how his covert activities might impact his wife and unborn child. Feeling the net tightening around him, he insists that Alicia seek shelter at her mother’s home. She assures the safety of their infant son, but refuses to leave her husband’s side (throughout the ordeal she is patient, loyal, sensitive and nurturing toward Nash). Hansen turns out to be a pretty decent guy when, decades after his rivalry with Nash, he shows mercy by giving the ostracized genius a chance to rejoin the Princeton community.

spiritual content: Alicia concludes “God must be a painter” because He created so many colors. When a colleague sees Nash and invokes the name of Christ in an inappropriate manner, Nash replies glibly that his “savior complex” hasn’t quite aspired to that level.

sexual content: Nash and his buddies are preoccupied with finding willing sexual partners. Right after being introduced to a girl, Nash forgoes even the most basic social graces and asks what it will take for her to sleep with him. It seems to be his style. He later propositions Alicia during a date, saying, “I tend to expedite information flow by being direct. All I really want to do is have intercourse with you as soon as possible.” She’s turned on by his forthrightness and it’s implied that they have sex. After they’re married, Alicia reaches beneath the covers in an unsuccessful attempt to put her husband in the mood. Charles makes a crass sexual remark. Nash’s Nobel Prize-caliber breakthrough occurs as a result of calculating how all of his friends can “get laid” by being “selfless.” The way it works is that they approach one beautiful blond, then bypass her altogether in favor of her four less attractive friends.

violent content: In frustration, Nash bangs his head against a window, cracking the glass and bloodying his forehead. He punches Dr. Rosen. A car chase involving an exchange of gunfire ends with Nash and Parcher’s bullet-riddled pursuers driving into a river. Elsewhere, characters brandish guns in a threatening manner. Newsreel footage shows the devastating power of a nuclear blast. Rosen’s people perform violent shock therapy on Nash. Several people are slapped. Alicia snaps under the stress, hurling a glass against a wall and smashing a mirror. To prove his story and his sanity, Nash gouges his arm to retrieve an implanted security device (lots of blood). There’s an intense scene in which a baby nearly drowns in a bathtub.

crude or profane language: Two dozen profanities include several s-words and 10 misuses of God’s name (five are exclamations of Jesus’ name). At one point, Charles employs crass anatomical slang in a sexual context. A young man uses a derogatory term for Japanese people.

drug and alcohol content: Many characters smoke cigarettes. We meet Charles after he has had a bit too much Johnny Walker (shortly thereafter, the free-spirit offers a flask to Nash and the two share a slug). At a campus bar, guys drink beer on several occasions. Nash and Charles both proclaim a deep “respect for beer.” Champagne is used to toast Nash’s success, and later appears at a formal party. Charles makes a reference to a drunk driving fatality. Dr. Rosen keeps Nash heavily medicated with substances ranging from Thorazine and pills to insulin shocks.

other negative elements: Nash is not an easy protagonist to embrace. In addition to admitting he doesn’t like people, he’s extremely arrogant. He despises having to share face time on a magazine cover with peers he calls “hacks.” As a teacher, he tells sweltering students wishing to let in fresh air and accompanying street noise, “Your comfort comes second to my ability to hear my own voice.” He resents sharing a scholarship with Hansen and belittles the man’s achievements as “derivative.”

conclusion: This is a very well-made, well-acted film guaranteed to get attention at Oscar time. But as taut and beguiling as A Beautiful Mind may be as a political thriller/psychological drama, the film’s themes of marital devotion and one man’s obsessive quest for personal significance left the greatest impression. It’s the kind of movie mature viewers will enjoy discussing long after the lights come up. Unfortunately, it seems any time Hollywood tackles “grown up” subject matter, it feels the need to toss in unnecessary content that can undermine the experience. Here the culprits are language and sexual immorality. Frustrating. Calculating viewers who factor in those variables will likely come to a singular conclusion: A Beautiful Mind is an intriguing, yet imperfect formula for a night out at the movies.

Bob Smithouser

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Review of A Beautiful Mind

It's a pleasure, then, to report that A Beautiful Mind is actually a very good movie. And if it was made on some level as Oscar bait, that's okay too. This is a good story, well told, that never panders to the audience (it's often pretty grim) but still manages to satisfy.

A lot of that satisfaction comes from Russell Crowe's performance as Nash. It's been a big year for Crowe, and his star seems to have fully ascended, if not actually peaked, but newspaper blurb hyperbole aside, this is amazing work. Imagine an even more twitchy, unpleasant version of his role as Jeffrey Wigand in Michael Mann's The Insider . Crowe-as-Nash is about as far away as he could get from the tough-guy physicality of Bud White in L.A. Confidential and Maximus in Gladiator . It's a "total immersion" kind of performance, where – within just a few minutes of the picture's beginning – you virtually forget that you're watching "Russell Crowe, Movie Star."

But, happily, this isn't a case where good performances are the only thing that carry the day. I'm enough of a fan-boy that the name of screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who penned such non-classics as Batman & Robin and Lost in Space , makes me cringe, but there's no arguing with the supremely fine work he's done here. The script juggles so many balls – so many plot elements and characters and even levels of perception – that one false move could have completely destroyed the whole thing. But Goldsman pulls it off beautifully, and doesn't shy away from the more off-putting elements of the story. It's very nice work – let's just hope this encourages him to stay away from Batman for the foreseeable future.

Although A Beautiful Mind is a very good movie, make no mistake: It's not always easy or likable. There's a lot of pain here (I can't reveal more without spoiling certain surprises) and some very unpleasant imagery. But it's also rich and stimulating, occasionally frustrating yet equally rewarding, and definitely one of the best films of the year.

The official Beautiful Mind website can be accessed HERE .

4 out of 5 Stars, 8/10 Score

Review of <I>A Beautiful Mind</I>

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A beautiful mind, common sense media reviewers.

Oscar-winning biopic is too intense for tweens.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Main character, who copes with mental illness, is

Tense scenes, including a shoot-out, a child in pe

Includes some crude references.

Some strong language.

Positive Role Models

Main character, who copes with mental illness, is successful and respected.

Violence & Scariness

Tense scenes, including a shoot-out, a child in peril, and domestic violence.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know the material might be very upsetting for kids, or for anyone who has relatives with mental illness or who knows very little about it. There are some strong scenes of family tension and peril, including a child in jeopardy, scuffles, and potential domestic abuse. There are graphic scenes of shock therapy and self-destructive behavior. A character is in peril involving shooting. There is also some crude language with sexual references. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Kids say (26)

Based on 8 parent reviews

One of the most emotional and dramatic pieces of awesomeness I've ever seen! I almost cried!

What's the story.

A man sees what no one else can, and we call him a genius. A man sees what no one else does, and we call him crazy. This Academy Award-winner for Best Picture is about a man who was both. It's the true story of genius John Forbes Nash, Jr., who revolutionized mathematics and struggled with mentally illness. More than 40 years later, as he edged back into sanity, his contribution was recognized by academics in Sweden. They awarded him the Nobel Prize.

Is It Any Good?

This is an extraordinary story, and it has been made into an extraordinary movie. Crowe is, as always, simply magnificent in a role that would provide irresistible temptation for showboating for most actors. There are superb performances by everyone in the cast, including Connelly (an Oscar-winner for Best Supporting Actress), Paul Bettany , Ed Harris , Christopher Plummer , Judd Hirsch , and a dozen others.

What is really special here is the way that screenwriter Akiva Goldman and director Ron Howard have found a way to present both Nash's genius and his mental illness in such compelling, cinematic, and accessible terms. Both in essence become characters in the story as we go inside his head and wonder with Nash what to believe. This is what makes the movie more than a disease-of-the-week special with color-by- numbers "heartwarming" moments of triumph over adversity. This is what makes the movie itself a true work of art.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about mental illness, about how people with mental illness need to be treated, and about what is different now in the way we treat the mentally ill from the days depicted in the movie. Families who want to know more should check the Web site for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

Movie Details

In theaters : December 21, 2001
On DVD or streaming : May 27, 2003
Cast : Ed Harris , Jennifer Connelly , Russell Crowe
Director : Ron Howard
Studio : Universal Pictures
Genre : Drama
Run time : 135 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : intense thematic material, sexual content and a scene of violence.
Last updated : April 26, 2024

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A Beautiful Mind

I never thought I would willingly watch a movie about math. Frankly, I got quite more than my fill of that in college. Even there I spent more time sleeping than I did engaging in the art of equations. But somehow, director Ron Howard has found a way to do what no college professor ever could… make math interesting.

A Beautiful Mind stars Russell Crowe as genius mathematician John Nash. Based on a true story, Nash is diagnosed as a paranoid-schizophrenic. With the help of his wife Alicia ( Jennifer Connelly ) he struggles against his madness and wins the Nobel Prize for his truly original theories. Most movies about mental illness generally tend to be less concerned with telling a powerful story, than they are in garnering rivers of tears. Sickly forced sweetness and artificial sadness are not the order of the day in the stunning story of John Nash.

A Beautiful Mind is not some sort of Forest Gump meets Einstein outing. John Nash, despite his eccentricities and lack of tact, is an engaging and intelligent character. Nor is it some kind of contrived bit of romance, where boy meets girl, girl saves boy’s soul. At its heart, A Beautiful Mind IS a romance, but one born out of the depth of deep lasting relationships and realistic, true love.

This a journey of discovery, magic, and heart carried along on the wings of dark personal tragedy. The film is gripping and emotional, but without any of the forceful fanfare of so many modern movies. In fact, it’s really quite low-key in tone throughout. Really, the viewer’s deep investment in Beautiful Mind’s characters only sneaks up on you when your back is turned. Ron Howard’s film grabs your heart when you aren’t looking and leaves you gasping and crying for characters you didn’t know you loved.

This is a cast firing on all cylinders with truly Oscar winning performances. John Nash couldn’t possibly be further from Crowe’s pumped up Maximus from last year’s dubious Oscar winner Gladiator . But Crowe is superb and convincing. There is little that one could ask from him here that hasn’t already been delivered. Connelly, to no one’s surprise, shines just as brightly as Alicia Nash as she does in ANY role she’s given.

Strangely enough, this really is a film centered around math. Why didn’t it put me to sleep? I had a bad time keeping my head off my desk in dear old Mrs. Kemp’s high school Algebra class. In college, Calculus sent me screaming. But for A Beautiful Mind , I spent hours willingly watching a mathematician work. In fact, some of the most enjoyable and singular moments of the film are spent watching Nash SOLVE PROBLEMS! Howard’s style is thrilling and entertaining. Nash’s work is engrossing, but only because Howard makes it so.

Love story, or math problem, A Beautiful Mind is without a doubt one of the finest, most genuine films of 2001.

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Mind Yourself

A Beautiful Mind: A Psychological Review

Ron howard's incredibly successful film handles schizophrenia with a gentle touch..

A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American biographical drama film that chronicles the life of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who struggles with schizophrenia. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Ron Howard, Best Adapted Screenplay for Akiva Goldsman, and Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Connelly.

John Nash, the brilliant mathematician at the heart of the movies was marked by exceptional intelligence from a young age. However, this remarkable intellect coexisted with signs of social awkwardness and emotional detachment.

During his school days a teacher said to him, "You were born with two helpings of brain but only a half a one of heart," this very aptly summarized Nash's complex nature, foreshadowing the lifelong struggle he would face in balancing his intellectual gifts with his mental health issues.

The Path to Brilliance and the Descent into Schizophrenia

Nash's journey from brilliant student to Nobel Prize-winning mathematician was punctuated by the onset of schizophrenia. While his academic pursuits flourished at Princeton University, his personal life became increasingly chaotic.

He neglected personal hygiene, struggled to maintain relationships, and exhibited an intense focus on his mathematical work. His apathy towards people, colleagues, and his diminished emotional expressions were early indicators of his deteriorating mental health.

He also suffered hallucinations and delusions and along with diminished emotional expression these are three of the five characteristics required for a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The other two being disorganized speech and catatonic behavior, things he also displayed occasionally in the film.

The Cold War Crucible: A Potential Trigger for Schizophrenia

The film suggests that two elements may have triggered Nash's schizophrenia. These were him attending university and the background of the Cold War.

Things start to go badly for Nash’s mental health when he starts his studies and thanks to his mathematical skills he’s soon ‘recruited’ by the Department of Defence to break Russian codes.

Hallucinations and Delusions: Navigating a Distorted Reality

Nash's schizophrenia manifested in the form of vivid hallucinations and elaborate delusions. He has a nonexistent roommate named Charles who he bickers with but also confides in too. There’s also Charles’ niece Marcee who plays an interesting role in that she asks him tough questions about his life and doesn’t really take any guff from him.

Finally, there’s William Parcher, a character he believes to be a military intelligence officer, and his superior when he is recruited to help the US in its codebreaking operations against Russia.

These recurring figures represented different aspects of Nash's internal conflict, reflecting his fears, insecurities, and desires.

His primary delusion centers on the aforementioned belief that he was a secret agent for the Department of Defense, entrusted with deciphering coded messages in newspapers and magazines to prevent a Soviet attack.

This delusion provided Nash with a sense of purpose and importance, compensating for his feelings of isolation and alienation. It also put in him great mental strife as he imagines he’s hunted and attacked by foes.

A Journey of Resilience and Triumph

Amidst the challenges of schizophrenia, Nash found love and support in his wife, Alicia. Her unwavering devotion and understanding played a crucial role in helping him manage his illness and pursue his academic career.

This devotion is tested though, particularly in a scene where Nash gets into a fight with Charles. Alicia cowers in the bathroom holding their newborn baby and when Nash enters he begins blabbering that he’s the only one that can see Charles because he’s been injected with a cloating serum where only Nash can see him. Alicia cries ‘there’s nobody here, there’s nobody here’.

Despite the debilitating effects of his condition, Nash managed to achieve extraordinary success, earning a Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to game theory.

Introducing Society to Schizophrenia

A Beautiful Mind has been widely praised for its sensitive and nuanced portrayal of schizophrenia. The film avoids sensationalizing the condition, instead focusing on the human cost of mental illness and the challenges faced by those living with schizophrenia and their loved ones. It has raised awareness of the disorder and sparked important conversations about the stigma associated with mental health.

The movie is not merely a story about schizophrenia though; it is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is a reminder that even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges, individuals can find strength, love, and purpose.

Nash's story teaches us that with determination and support, even those battling debilitating mental illnesses can achieve remarkable success and contribute meaningfully to society.

The film's enduring impact lies in its ability to humanize mental illness, showing that individuals with schizophrenia are not defined by their condition but by their courage, perseverance, and humanity.

Hi, I’m Paddy. Thanks for reading my article. I’m a counselor, coach and meditation teacher.

If you’d like to contact me regarding a counseling session or about writing, you can contact me here . My different social media channels are here .

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A Beautiful Mind Review

22 Feb 2002

136 minutes

A Beautiful Mind

Playing the mentally ill has always been a fast-track to critical and Oscar success, and so it proved for Russell Crowe, who bagged a third successive nomination for his performance as mentally-ill maths genius John Nash in Ron Howard's glossy biopic, which won Best Picture in 2002.

Crowe's off-screen contretemps with a Bafta official apparently cost him the chance to follow up on his Gladiator gold and follow in the footsteps of Geoffrey Rush ( Shine ), Daniel Day-Lewis ( My Left Foot ) and Dustin Hoffman ( Rain Man ), but there's no denying that his crowd-pleasing performance is this movie's trump card.

Essentially it's that old chestnut, the inspirational biopic and Howard skilfully yomps us along the well-worn path of early promise (success at sums!), catastrophic downfall (going bonkers!), and a final, emotionally-charged triumph over adversity (winning the Nobel Prize!). The problem is that, even if you haven't read the book on which it's based, you're left with the niggling suspicion that this is all too neat to be anything near the whole story. As indeed turns out to be the case.

Nash's bisexuality, a child out of wedlock and a divorce are all AWOL, while the feel-good ending neatly skips over the horrible, irreparable reality of a professional and personal life effectively ruined by insanity. Of course, any biopic smoothes the edges and has to construct a story out of the messy realities of life, but here there's a sense that the manipulation borders on dishonesty.

None of which is to deny that there are very good things as well. Crowe marshals his tics with showy aplomb, Howard displays his usual facility for smoothly-engineered filmmaking, and Akiva Goldsman's (yup, he of Batman & Robin ) screenplay delivers the necessary dramatic wallop and a craftily shocking reversal.

Support is generally good, especially from Paul Bettany, last seen whooping it up as Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knight's Tale , and the movie's only Oscar-winning performance from Bettany's future missus, Jennifer Connelly, here playing the put-upon and long-suffering Mrs. Nash. But in the end, Howard's film's undoubted effectiveness conceals a disappointingly cynical heart.

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A Beautiful Mind

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A Beautiful Mind , American biographical film , released in 2001, that told the story of American Nobel Prize winner John Nash , whose innovative work on game theory in mathematics was in many ways overshadowed by decades of mental illness . Parts of the film, which is set largely on the campus of Princeton University against a backdrop of Cold War intrigue, are seen from Nash’s delusional perspective. The movie, directed by Ron Howard and based loosely on Sylvia Nasar’s 1998 biography of Nash, won four Academy Awards , including that for best picture.

The movie begins in 1947 at Princeton, where Nash (played by Russell Crowe ) has arrived as a graduate student, together with Martin Hansen (Josh Lucas), Richard Sol (Adam Goldberg), Ainsley (Jason Gray-Stanford), and Bender (Anthony Rapp). Nash is arrogant and dismissive of his classmates but gets along with his roommate Charles (Paul Bettany). Nash generally pursues his studies alone but, when Charles suggests that he take a break and go to a bar, Nash agrees. At the bar, a discussion with his classmates as to the most successful way for them to approach a group of women leads to Nash’s breakthrough paper on game theory.

Publicity still with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman from the motion picture film "Casablanca" (1942); directed by Michael Curtiz. (cinema, movies)

Nash later receives an appointment to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where Sol and Bender become his assistants. A few years later, he is asked to the Pentagon to decrypt coded Russian communications. His success impresses William Parcher ( Ed Harris ), a high-level agent in the Department of Defense . While teaching at MIT, Nash begins dating a student, Alicia ( Jennifer Connelly ). Parcher visits Nash to enlist him in a group of workers who scan newspapers and magazines to find hidden Russian codes embedded in the text. Nash is to leave deciphered codes in a secret drop box for Parcher. The clandestine work makes Nash nervous, but he is cheered when he reunites with his former roommate Charles. He marries Alicia soon thereafter. Some time later, Nash gets caught up in a gun battle between Parcher and several Russian agents. Terrified, he asks Parcher to be relieved of his assignment, but Parcher tells him that he would be killed if he were to quit. While giving a lecture at Harvard University , Nash sees Charles in the audience but then spots Russian agents as well, and he flees.

Nash is captured, sedated, and sent to a psychiatric facility under the care of Dr. Rosen ( Christopher Plummer ). Dr. Rosen tells Alicia that Nash suffers from schizophrenia and that Parcher and Charles exist only in Nash’s mind. Alicia is not convinced until she sees the inside of Nash’s office and also finds the drop box, which is full of unopened missives. Nash receives therapy, and Nash, Alicia, and their son move to Princeton. The medication makes Nash lethargic , however, and eventually he stops taking his pills. After he knocks Alicia to the ground when Parcher urges him to kill her, he and Alicia decide to find a way to live with his illness. After that, although Nash continues to see Parcher and Charles, he no longer interacts with them. Eventually, he is able to return to teaching, and in 1994 he receives the Nobel Prize.

A Beautiful Mind was criticized by some viewers for glossing over some of the darker elements of Nash’s life story, including the facts that Nash fathered a child with a different woman before marrying Alicia and that he was arrested in 1954 for indecent exposure. The mathematician’s symptoms in fact did not begin until 1959, after he had written his dissertation. Although the film depicted Nash’s hallucinations as largely visual, Nash himself reported that his delusions were mostly auditory and mental. The screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman, conceived of the visual hallucinations as a method for giving the viewer the sensation of experiencing delusions. Though in reality Nash apparently had a remission of his mental illness, in the movie the character says that he is taking a newer medicine. This was a choice made by the director in order not to give the impression that abandoning medication was an appropriate method of dealing with schizophrenia.

Studios: Universal Studios , DreamWorks, and Imagine Entertainment
Director: Ron Howard
Writer: Akiva Goldsman (script)
Music: James Horner
Russell Crowe (John Nash)
Jennifer Connelly (Alicia Nash)
Josh Lucas (Martin Hansen)
Adam Goldberg (Richard Sol)
Anthony Rapp (Bender)
Paul Bettany (Charles)
Ed Harris (William Parcher)
Christopher Plummer (Dr. Rosen)
Lead actor (Russell Crowe)
Supporting actress* (Jennifer Connelly)

Screen Rant

A beautiful mind: everything the movie changed from real life.

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Top gun: maverick — jennifer connelly's best movies, according to imdb, a beautiful mind ending explained.

A Beautiful Mind exaggerated John Nash's hallucinations, as most individuals with schizophrenia do not experience life-like people as depicted in the movie.
The pen ceremony at Princeton, where Nash is honored by his professors, was completely fabricated for the film, although it symbolizes his acceptance and recognition among his mathematical peers.
The movie inaccurately portrays Nash's medication usage, as he actually stopped taking medication in 1970, while the film suggests he took newer medications in 1994.

A Beautiful Mind dramatizes the true story of mathematician John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics who was known for his pioneering contributions to game theory. Directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe as Nash, the movie focuses on his time as a gifted Princeton student and how he went down a nightmarish spiral after working as a cryptographer for the CIA. It also delves into the strained relationship that Nash had with his wife Alicia, played by Jennifer Connelly. Written by Akiva Goldsman, A Beautiful Mind 's screenplay was adapted from Sylvia Nasar's acclaimed 1998 biography of the same name.

The biopic was nominated for eight Oscars and won four, including Best Picture. Howard was named Best Director, Connelly won Best Supporting Actress, and Goldsman went home with the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. With the script exploring Nash's mental health struggles, A Beautiful Mind easily earned a spot among the best movies about tortured geniuses . For the sake of creative liberties, though, Nash's asocial personality and schizophrenia diagnosis are wrought with factual inaccuracies, and A Beautiful Mind has been criticized for everything it changes and leaves out from the true story.

A Beautiful Mind is available to stream on Netflix.

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John Nash Did Not See Imaginary People

A beautiful mind exaggerated the real john nash's hallucinations.

Upon being told that he has schizophrenia, John Nash is revealed to have been talking to people who existed only in his imagination. These include his Princeton roommate Charles, Charles's niece Marcee, and the ominous Department of Defense official William Parcher. However, this hallucinatory element is overdramatized in A Beautiful Mind .

" The movie's portrayal of Dr. Nash seeing and conversing with life-like 'people' is not what most individuals with schizophrenia experience ," psychiatry professor Dr. Steve Lamberti told ABC News . Dr. Tim Johnson added that schizophrenics with visual hallucinations tend to see figures in distorted or " cartoonish " forms as opposed to the realistic depiction shown in A Beautiful Mind .

The Pen Ceremony At Princeton Didn't Happen

One of the most memorable scenes in a beautiful mind was made up.

Princeton professors placing their pens on a table as John Nash looks at them in A Beautiful Mind

What makes A Beautiful Mind one of Russell Crowe's best movies is the empathy and nuance with which the actor plays Nash. For instance, in the scene where mathematics professors of Princeton University ritualistically present their pens to an aged Nash, Crowe's emotionally-charged expressions are praise-worthy. But no such event ever took place.

The official website of the Princeton University Library states that " no such custom exists " and the scene was " completely fabricated in Hollywood ." However, the website does acknowledge the importance of the scene as it symbolizes that Nash was accepted and recognized by his mathematical peers for his achievements.

John Nash Did Not Take Medication From 1970 Onwards

A beautiful mind changed john nash's views on psychiatric drugs.

John Nash looking afraid while lying in bed in A Beautiful Mind

In A Beautiful Mind , John Nash refuses to take medication for his schizophrenia after a few nightmarish experiences. But in a scene set in 1994, he says, " I take the newer medications ." This is another factual difference between A Beautiful Mind and the true story, as Sylvia Nasar's biography claims Nash stopped taking medication in 1970.

While Ron Howard has made movies that are historically accurate , such as Apollo 13 , A Beautiful Mind falters with such inaccuracies. In the movie's DVD commentary, Howard justifies the creative liberty taken with the medication as a decision to ensure that A Beautiful Mind isn't misinterpreted for suggesting people with schizophrenia don't ever require medication.

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The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Didn't Happen

John nash never gave a speech when accepting his 1994 award.

John Nash accepting his Nobel Prize at the podium in A Beautiful Mind

John Nash and his fellow game theorists John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten were collectively awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics. In one of A Beautiful Mind 's most dramatic scenes, Nash gives a moving speech where he dedicates his Nobel to his wife. This moment was even parodied in and inspired one of the theories about I'm Thinking of Ending Things .

However, contrary to what is shown in A Beautiful Mind , the real John Nash never delivered a speech after accepting his award . The actual video footage retained by The New York Times shows Nash as just receiving his award in Stockholm and bowing to an applauding audience.

The Wheeler Laboratory At MIT Is Fictional

A beautiful mind created the facility for the movie.

The Wheeler Laboratory in A Beautiful Mind

After obtaining his doctorate from Princeton, Nash is shown to accept a position as an instructor at MIT. While this plot point aligns with the true story behind A Beautiful Mind , his faculty at MIT is a fictional creation. The film's version of Nash is shown to be assigned to MIT's prestigious Wheeler Laboratory where he can pursue mathematical research.

However, as Professor Isadore M. Singer told MIT News , " There is not and never has been any Wheeler Lab at MIT ." Instead, the real John Nash was invited to the university as a C.L.E Moore Instructor , a job title offered by MIT's Math department to Ph.D.s with potential in mathematics research.

John Nash Probably Had Homosexual Experiences

A beautiful mind didn't fully address john's sexuality.

While John Nash and Sylvia Nasar assert that he was not gay, the book of A Beautiful Mind does point to some homosexual encounters . According to Slate , Nasar wrote that Nash attempted to " make a pass " at a male friend by climbing into his bed when he was sleeping. Similarly, Nasar says that Nash might have felt " something very close to love " with fellow mathematician John Milnor.

The Slate article also mentions that Nash kissed another friend named Donald Newman on the mouth even though Newman didn't reciprocate. Nasar's book mentions another experience of " mutual attraction " with a man. The adaptation omits Nash's complicated feelings for other men.

Jennifer Connelly scored one of her biggest critical hits with Top Gun: Maverick, but her filmography includes many films with high IMDb ratings.

A Beautiful Mind Skips Over Alicia & John Nash's Divorce In 1963

The romance aspects of a beautiful life were heavily altered.

One of the worst inaccuracies in biopics is the addition of heartwarming scenarios instead of sad realities. This occurs in A Beautiful Mind with the portrayal of Alicia Nash as a constant part of John Nash's life while ignoring their divorce. The real Alicia was an aspiring physicist, but she gave up her professional goals to support her husband and became a mental health advocate. Marrying in 1957, the couple divorced in 1963. Slate reports that Nash still lived with his then-ex-wife as a " boarder ." The two remarried in 2001 just before the movie's release. So, Alicia being present in scenes like the Nobel ceremony wouldn't have happened.

John Nash Had A Child With Another Woman

A beautiful mind ignores john nash's affair.

John and Alicia Nash had one child together in 1959, a son christened John Charles Martin Nash. However, a few years before his marriage, 25-year-old Nash had a child with a Boston nurse called Eleanor Stier. She bore Nash a son named John David Stier in 1953, but Nash refused to care for either the child or his mother. According to Slate , John David was put in foster care and Stier had to hire a lawyer in 1956 to get Nash to pay child support. Barring a 17-year estrangement, Nash and John David still communicated through letters and occasionally met in person.

John Nash Didn't Foil Any Soviet Schemes

The real nash worked for rand.

When he's hired by the imaginary Pentagon official William Parcher in A Beautiful Mind , John Nash uses his mathematical skills to decipher Soviet codes. With this undercover work executed in his imagination, Nash grows paranoid thinking Soviet spies are after him.

Delving away from Nash's hallucinatory visions, the true story behind A Beautiful Mind suggests Nash did actually indulge in work related to national defense and security. But as stated in The Guardian , he was not attached directly to the Pentagon but served as a consultant for the RAND Corporation instead . RAND is a non-profit think tank that indulges in national security research and receives funding from the U.S. government.

A Beautiful Mind is the partially-true story of Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash (Russel Crowe) and his struggle with schizophrenia.

A Beautiful Mind Doesn't Include All Of John Nash's Revolutionary Work

The movie downplays his historical significance.

A Beautiful Mind introduces audiences to the Nash Equilibrium, the revolutionary addition to game theory that established Nash as a mathematics visionary. Nash also came up with many other mathematical concepts that could not be incorporated into the film. While his contributions to game theory earned him a Nobel Prize, he also won the Abel Prize, a prestigious mathematics honor, for his contributions to the field of partial differential equations.

The omission of Nash's other work from A Beautiful Mind makes sense given how the mathematical jargon of these theories might not have been as easily palatable for audiences, but it keeps the movie from telling the whole true story.

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Movie Critique: Analyzing “A Beautiful Mind” Through A Psychological Lens

When John Nash is first introduced in A Beautiful Mind , he appears to stare off into space, speaks in a monotone voice, and talks to very few people. To the average viewer, this may seem harmless, but to someone viewing the film with a psychological perspective, all of these could point to schizophrenia.

The National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH) defines schizophrenia as a “chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves” (“Schizophrenia”). In the film A Beautiful Mind , protagonist John Nash experiences this disorder and its effects firsthand.

The movie portrays Nash at several points throughout his life, from his days in college to a point late in his career. Nash’s symptoms of schizophrenia pose daunting challenges to him in his family and career, but audiences do not fully learn the extent of these challenges until about halfway through the film.

Ultimately, the film does a great job of portraying life through Nash’s perspective, which makes the revelation that Nash has schizophrenia all the more powerful.

The film begins with a college-aged Nash, who is working on a project that will help him advance in his career. He has a strong bond with his roommate Charles, but does not have any other close relationships.

After college, Nash begins working on mathematical research at MIT while also teaching a class there. It is there that he meets Alicia, a student in his class who would later become his wife and strongest supporter.

Around this time, he also begins working secretly with Parcher, who works with the Department of Defense and assigns him projects to crack Russian codes embedded in newspapers. Nash is told that he cannot discuss this top-secret work with anyone, so he keeps it a secret from his wife.

Eventually, it is revealed by Nash’s psychiatrist that Charles, Parcher, and the secret DoD assignments were not real and were only in Nash’s mind. From this point on, the film portrays Nash’s struggles with schizophrenia as they affect his professional and personal life.

As someone who has never seen another portrayal of schizophrenia in popular media, I felt that the movie gave a great overview of the disorder while focusing on Nash’s specific case. Many of the symptoms outlined in the text Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World , as well as in other sources, are seen in the film.

The text states that schizophrenia “touches every facet of the affected person’s life” (Nevid 404) and causes those with the disorder to “become increasingly disengaged from society” (Nevid 404). This is definitely the case with John Nash, as his symptoms are expressed across different parts of his life and become more severe as he grows older.

According to the text, schizophrenia “typically develops during late adolescence or early adulthood” (405). This timeline is appropriate when discussing Nash’s case. When we first meet Nash, he is enrolled in college and is developing a bond with his fictional roommate Charles. Though it is unclear whether Nash had shown symptoms prior to this, Charles’ existence is indicative of one major symptom of schizophrenia that would afflict Nash for the majority of his life.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) defines hallucination as “a person hearing voices, seeing things, or smelling things others can’t perceive” (“What is Schizophrenia?”). In Nash’s case, Charles and other characters in the film are vivid, influential hallucinations that last for long periods of time.

While Charles was heavily present during Nash’s college days, Parcher became a prominent hallucination when Nash began working at MIT. Parcher, who claimed to work for the DoD, assigned Nash to work privately on breaking Russian secret codes hidden in American newspapers or magazines.

During his “work” with Parcher, Nash is involved in a car chase and shootout. He then expresses to Parcher that he does not want to continue with his work, and Parcher tells him he needs to keep working unless he wants the Russians to know his identity.

This makes sense, as the NAMI also expresses that “the voices in the hallucination can be critical or threatening” (“What is Schizophrenia?”). In this case, Parcher is threatening Nash to continue his work or suffer the consequences of Russians coming after him.

Another symptom experienced by Nash, disorganized thinking, is defined by the NAMI as a “struggle to remember things, organize their thoughts or complete tasks” (“What is Schizophrenia?”). This is seen on a regular but minor basis when Nash is in college, as he repeatedly has trouble coming up with a topic for his school research project. However, the more prominent example of disorganized thinking that Nash experiences comes when he is giving a guest lecture at Princeton years after his graduation.

During the lecture, he has trouble making coherent statements and instead trails off mid-sentence. His hallucinations make this worse; when he sees a group of men standing in the back of the room, he feels like they are Russians and are coming after him. He runs out of the lecture hall and across the campus, until he is intercepted by the psychiatrist, who Nash also assumes to be a Russian spy.

After being brought to the treatment facility by the psychiatrist Dr. Rosen, Nash experiences another symptom of schizophrenia: delusions. The NAMI explains that delusions are “false beliefs that don’t change even when the person who holds them is presented with new ideas or facts” (“What is Schizophrenia?”).

Despite being presented with facts about his diagnosis by Dr. Rosen and Alicia, Nash was resistant and reluctant to accept this reality.

Even though he had been enrolled in treatment and been told by Alicia that his hallucinations were not real, Nash still believed that he was being held prisoner by the Russians. He also rationalized his belief in Parcher’s existence, despite Alicia telling him there is no record of anyone by that name working for the DoD, by saying that he would not be listed in any records because he is a secret operative.

Worst of all, he cut open his arm to find the tracking device he believed Parcher implanted in him; when it was not there, he reasoned that someone had removed it, instead of realizing it was never there in the first place.

Before his diagnosis, Nash appeared to have it all together; after all, he appeared to be working for the DoD and was described by Parcher as “the best code breaker [he has] ever seen.” However, after being diagnosed with schizophrenia, the troubles being faced by Nash became much clearer to him, Alicia, and viewers.

The text explains that people with schizophrenia often “fail to function in the expected roles of student, worker, or spouse, and their families and communities grow intolerant of their deviant behavior” (Nevid 404). Once again, this description applies to Nash’s case.

Alicia, who was Nash’s primary caretaker after his release from treatment, reported to a friend that she felt “obligation or guilt over wanting to leave [John]” as well as “rage against John [and] against god.” She was clearly overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for her husband.

These emotions reached a boiling point when Nash tried to give their son a bath. Alicia had stepped out for a moment, and when she returned, the baby was nearly drowning in the water. Nash was not supervising the baby because he believed that Charles was watching him. Alicia then tried to call Dr. Rosen. Nash, at the perceived insistence of Parcher, then pushed her to the ground and away from the phone in response. During this event, Nash’s hallucinations got in the way of his ability to behave appropriately with his son and wife.

When Nash returned to work, he also experienced difficulties typical of people with schizophrenia. Unfortunately, shortly after his return, he became panicked at the sight of Parcher and ran all over campus to get away from him.

Thankfully, he was still allowed to keep his job after this. After this, when he saw his hallucinations, he did his best to avoid them, and even told Charles and Marci that he should not be talking to them anymore. Nash’s symptoms got in the way of his work at first, but fortunately they became gradually less debilitating as his career progressed.

In the end, Nash was able to succeed in his life despite experiencing hallucinations for the majority of his life. He went on to have a long career as a professor at Princeton, and even won a Nobel Prize. His marriage also persevered through the struggles he and Alicia experienced. This film sends hope to people with schizophrenia that it is possible to overcome the challenges the disorder poses in order to achieve their goals.

Nevid, J. S., Rathus, S. A., & Greene, B. (2014). Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Higher Education.
Schizophrenia. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2018, from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/index.shtml
What is Schizophrenia? (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2018, from https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/schizophrenia

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A Beautiful Mind Essay

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Introduction

Directed by Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind is an inspiring American movie, which explores the story of a successful young Mathematician, John Nash. In the story, Nash tries to find an original idea while in a graduate school where he interacts with many people most of whom he does not like.

He later gets a high profile job where he falls in love with Alicia whom he later marries. Nash begins to have a problem of paranoia and he later discovers that he is suffering from Schizophrenia. He tries to cope with his medical condition. At one point, he attempts to pluck out an implant in his arm. At another instance, he refuses to take medicine because he claims that the medicine has side effects.

This condition brings suffering in Nash’s life as he watches in pain how much his condition burdens his wife as well as his friends. The rest of the movie talks about Nash’s abilities and achievements as he tries to overcome his condition while he brings out his genius self. By using the events in Nash’s life and his condition, the movie accurately depicts schizophrenia, which will be the major subject of interest in the review of this movie.

Schizophrenia is a mind disorder in which the sufferer experiences periods of hallucinations and delusions. The movie successfully manages to create global awareness about Schizophrenia, a mental illness, which people had hitherto considered a mystery. The movie effectively underscores different issues about Schizophrenia including what happens in the sufferer’s mind by handling it as one of the major themes.

Nasar argues that the decision of Howard to showcase Nash as a sufferer of Schizophrenia who is able to overcome this mental disorder is quite admirable since besides encouraging the sufferers of this mental illness, he also overshadows the world wide myths about this condition (1998, p.78) .

The film shows how Nash suffers from his childhood, gradually learns to overcome this condition and manages to bring out his genius self as a mathematician. According to Goldsman, the hallucinations and delusions experienced by Nash as this condition plagues him from his childhood is an attempt by Psychiatrists to guide and educate people about the symptoms of this mental illness ( 2002, p.52).

Like Nash, everyone, if not most of the people suffering from Schizophrenia are bound to experience hallucinations and delusions. The violent nature of Nash that causes his wife to flee with her baby in fear of her security further shows that choleric is another symptom of Schizophrenia. There may however be small variations in the intensity these symptoms amongst the sufferers.

After undergoing insulin therapy, the Physician gives Nash antipsychotic drugs that after taking part of the dose he experiences damaging fallouts that sever emotional and sexual links with his wife. This prompts him to stop taking the drugs, which affects his intellect. By painting this picture of Nash, the director tries to create awareness about the side effects of schizophrenia medication. On the other side, many myths exist in the public domain about this condition.

One such myth asserts that schizophrenics exhibit two or more personalities. For instance, Nash assumes one personality as a sufferer of Schizophrenia and the other as a genius in mathematics who wins Nobel prizes.

A Beautiful Mind is one of the movies that have successfully endeavored to create worldwide awareness about Schizophrenia, a mental illness that causes hallucinations and delusions. The movie, through the main character manages to inform its audience that despite being in this condition, the sufferers can overcome it and live up to their expectations.

Goldman , A. (2002). A Beautiful Mind: The Shooting Script. New York: Newmarket Press. Print.

Nasar, Sylvia. (1998). A Beautiful Mind. New York: Touchstone Books. Print.

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1. IvyPanda . "A Beautiful Mind." August 22, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-beautiful-mind-movie-review/.

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I Never Want to See This Movie Again

It’s the severed finger that does it. Not because it’s gross, but because it’s presented so matter-of-factly. When Agnes (Anja Plaschg), the protagonist of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s The Devil’s Bath , gratefully receives that body part from her brother on her wedding day as a good-luck charm for a hoped-for pregnancy, the film enters a fully alien place. Strangely enough, before that, we’ve already been treated to a prologue featuring a distressed mother who throws her baby off a cliff and is punished by beheading and dismemberment. So we know this will be a cruel and strange movie. Franz and Fiala based their script on real events documented in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the bleak, muddy Austrian landscape seems to reflect the severe, unforgiving nature of this devout, deeply superstitious community.

But Agnes seems like a genuine innocent, as fragile as the dry leaves and delicate butterflies she likes to collect. That a severed finger would be a source of joy upends our initial impression of her and adds a subtle up-is-down quality to the film, which reflects the psychology of its characters. If you gave a supremely talented 18th-century villager from upper Austria a camera, they might make a movie like this.

The Devil’s Bath is a deeply fucked-up picture. I say that with admiration. Franz and Fiala first made waves with the 2015 psychological thriller Goodnight Mommy , and they’ve been mining a particular vein of surreal, simmering suspense since. They make sad, striking films that never entirely reveal what they’re about, which is a pretty great way to both grab and unsettle the viewer, especially when it comes to the horror genre. The movies are earworms that prompt the darker corners of our imaginations. But if their previous pictures felt like ornate, twisted little mousetraps, The Devil’s Bath feels less precise, more cosmic. It will be streaming on Shudder after a brief theatrical release, though to call it horror seems inexact. This is a more existential brand of terror and torture, which brings to mind Robert Eggers’s The Witch and Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves . Here, the whole universe is evil and suffocating, not just one corner of it.

When we first meet Agnes, she’s wide-eyed and full of affection for her new husband, awkward mama’s boy Wolf (David Scheig), even though he shows little interest in her. (Frankly, he seems more interested in a male pal to whom he drunkenly expresses his adoration on his wedding night.) A child is expected of them, but Wolf’s approach to carnal relations … well, let’s just say it’s not the sort of thing that would lead to anyone having kids. His stern, judgmental mother (Maria Hofstatter), the kind of person who would deny an extra piece of stale bread to a pregnant woman, regards Agnes with suspicion as well; she seems to think this girl is too flighty and soft for her boy.

Franz and Fiala are masters of tone. Here, they weave an elegantly grim mood, framing this gray, overgrown, and swampy terrain as if it were a kind of spiritual limbo. When one villager commits suicide and is denied a burial, we see their body discarded in a field full of trash and bones; it could be an actual field or a representation of the netherworld such souls are forced to occupy in this devout community’s conception of the afterlife.

But the heart of the film belongs to Plaschg, who makes Agnes’s growing melancholy inordinately compelling. We can’t quite reach this young woman — she belongs to a world unlike ours in so many ways, and she so rarely speaks — but the gathering anxiety she feels in the face of all this judgment and expectation, with sin supposedly lurking around every corner, becomes quite palpable. (The actress, better known as a musician who performs under the name Soap&Skin, also composed the film’s score.) That’s the dark magic of this movie. Agnes remains a captivating enigma, but her pain is so vivid it’s almost unbearable. The result is one of those films you can’t stop thinking about — but might never want to see again.

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It’s a family matter.

Kevin Costner is defending casting his son Hayes in his movie “Horizon: An American Saga,” as the film gets critically panned.

The “Dances With Wolves” star and director, 69, cast his 15-year-old son as Nathaniel Kittredge in the first of the four-part, Civil War-era Western without an audition.

“I realize there are so many young actors out there that would just kill to be in this movie,” he told the “Today” show on Monday. “And I don’t want to take those parts away from them just ’cause I can place my own children in.”

“Horizon” currently has a rating of 43% on Rotten Tomatoes.

BBC wrote in their scathing review that a movie “needs to have a plot, a bit of credible characterization, and a structure that preferably includes a beginning, middle and end. ‘Horizon’ doesn’t have any of those.”

Variety slammed Costner’s film as “meandering,” and said it “seldom seems to aim in a clear direction,” while IndieWire said, “These aren’t characters so much as the spokes of a plot in human form, each of their storylines moving as if being pulled by horses across the entire span of the American West.”

The Daily Beast’s headline, meanwhile, declared the film “a misogynistic, racist . . . mess” and critic Esther Zuckerman wrote, “I’m not sure why Costner didn’t turn this into the television project it so wishes to be. Perhaps he just wanted to one up ‘Yellowstone,’ the wildly popular Taylor Sheridan show, on which he played John Dutton, and which he decided to leave . But as a cinematic experience it is aggravating in multiple ways.”

Costner has previously spoken about how “Horizon” is his passion project. He directed, co-wrote, produced and stars in the film, and he risked his home to fund it with his own money .

Set during the pre- and post-Civil War era in the American West, the movie has an ensemble cast including Costner, his son Hayes, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Danny Huston, Luke Wilson and Jamie Campbell Bower.

Costner said about his son, “He’s a beautiful boy, and he’s quiet. And I have not shoved my children into the business.”

Hayes is one of Costner’s seven children. The Oscar winner has Annie, 40, Lily, 37, and Joe, 36, with ex-wife Cindy Silva. He has a son, Liam, 26, with Bridget Rooney. And his three youngest children — Cayden, 17, Hayes, 15, and Grace, 13 — are with ex-wife Christine Baumgartner, whom he divorced in February after a messy split.

Costner’s son’s role in “Horizon” required just two weeks of filming, the “Yellowstone” star said.

“But, in a sense, it was a smaller part,” he explained. “I selfishly wanted him with me for the week, two weeks, he was with me. And we would drive to the set every day, and he would whisper.”

Despite Hayes having no acting experience, Costner praised his son’s performance.

“He didn’t have a lot of experience, but he’s really beautiful in the movie,” Costner said.

“It’s a really complicated scene. In the end, there’s a nobility, there’s an absolute fatalness about it. It’s what you don’t want a son to do, and at the end of the day, you’re proud that he would make that choice,” Costner added.

Back in April, the “Yellowstone” star revealed that the character he plays in the film served as inspiration for Hayes’ name.

“I named him after the character I play in this. My character’s name is Hayes Ellison,” he told ET at the time. “And I named Hayes that character. So I was watching him grow up, and I was thinking, ‘Man, I better get with it and make this movie.’ ”

“Horizon: An American Saga” hits theaters June 28.

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Movie Review: Peace (and pieces) of mind ‘Inside Out 2'

This image released by Disney/Pixar shows, from left, Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, background left, Anger, voiced by Lewis Black, Disgust, voiced by Liza Lapira, Envy, voiced by Ayo Edebiri, and Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, in a scene from “Inside Out 2.” (Disney/Pixar via AP)

This image released by Disney/Pixar shows, from left, Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith, Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, Disgust, voiced by Liza Lapira, Fear, voiced by Tony Hale and Anger, voiced by Lewis Black, in a scene from “Inside Out 2.” (Disney/Pixar via AP)

This image released by Disney/Pixar shows, from left, Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith, left, and Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, in a scene from “Inside Out 2.” (Disney/Pixar via AP)

This image released by Disney/Pixar shows, from left, Embarrassment, voiced by Paul Walter Hauser, Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, Envy, voiced by Ayo Edebiri, and Ennui, voiced by Adèle Exarchopoulos in a scene from “Inside Out 2.” (Disney/Pixar via AP)

This image released by Disney/Pixar shows promotional art for “Inside Out 2.” (Disney/Pixar via AP)

This image released by Disney/Pixar shows, from left, Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, Embarrassment, voiced by Paul Walter Hauser, Envy, voiced by Ayo Edebiri, Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, Disgust, voiced by Liza Lapira, Anger, voiced by Lewis Black (foreground), Fear, voiced by Tony Hale, and Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith, in a scene from “Inside Out 2.” (Disney/Pixar via AP)

This image released by Disney/Pixar shows Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, left, and Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, in a scene from “Inside Out 2.” (Disney/Pixar via AP)

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Sequels have been a touchy subject when it comes to Pixar, but it’s hard to deny the natural premise of “Inside Out 2.” It’s been nine years since “Inside Out,” yet in the span between that film and its new sequel, Riley, the young girl with a head full of emotions, has gone from 11 years old to 13. She’s just grown up a little.

Or maybe a lot. In the middle of the night, the old gang of Joy ( Amy Poehler ), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale), Disgust (Liza Lapira) and Anger (Lewis Black) are roused from their beds by a soft beep, like a fire alarm in need of a new battery, but soon it’s sounding an all-out emergency. On their console a red light blinks. “What’s that?” one says. “Puberty,” the button reads. Soon, construction workers are swarming the control room for “demo day,” with wrecking balls making room for “the others.”

In come a new gaggle of emotions said to be more sophisticated: Anxiety ( Maya Hawke ), Envy ( Ayo Edebiri ), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). The next morning, Riley wakes up to find herself unusually stinky. Life, as they say, comes at you pretty fast. “Inside Out 2” turns out to be not just a modest, inch-things-along sequel but a follow-up of cataclysmic proportions.

This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons in a scene from "Kinds of Kindness." (Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures via AP)

Tempting as it is to take any revisiting of “Inside Out” — a high water mark for not just Pixar but ’10s American movies — as sacrilegious, its sequel is deftly sensitive to one of the most awkward chapters of life. The giddy sense of imagination is a little less boundless this time. One could certainly look at “Inside Out 2” like a parent eyeing a teenager and thinking the younger version was cuter and less whiny. But the filmmakers of “Inside Out 2” have managed again to filter complex psychological developments into a bright, entertaining head trip that in its finest moments packs an emotional wallop.

I would peg Joy as the real protagonist of the first “Inside Out.” That movie, really, hinged on the blue-haired sprite’s desperate race to preserve all the happiness of childhood. Aided especially by Poehler’s brilliant voice work, Joy — a kind of stand-in for parents wanting only the best for their kids — was less just another emotion than an unflagging guardian learning that sometimes letting go is best.

This time, Riley feels more the main character, though Anxiety, an excitable, orange, bug-eyed Muppet-like thing, is increasingly calling the shots. Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) is now taller, has a few good friends and is still playing hockey. Her internal landscape is shifting, too. Boy Band Island is done, for one. And out of her pools of memories, new strands are growing a tree-shaped Belief System. Just who Riley is, at her core, gets tested and reshaped in “Inside Out 2.”

Some of the brain trust on the film are also new. Kelsey Mann, a longtime Pixar veteran, takes over directing from Pete Docter (now the Pixar chief) to make his debut feature. The script is by Meg LeFauve, who co-wrote the original, and Dave Holstein.

My recollections of “Inside Out” — if my memory orbs have been correctly filed — are mostly of all those glowing balls of the past and Joy and Sadness’ mad dashes through the back of Riley’s mind, a pun-filled inner space both literal and metaphorical. Plus, we can’t forget, Richard Kind’s voice as Bing Bong.

Much is the same in “Inside Out 2” (though, alas, Bing Bong sleeps with the fishes). But the film is a little more tilted outside Riley’s mind. As the school year is coming to a close, Riley heads to a weekend hockey camp that’s a preview of her high-school life to come.

New stresses are developing. Her pals (voiced by Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green and Grace Lu) are headed to a different school, Riley learns. On the ice, what was once carefree play is becoming a more complicated experience plagued by self-doubt. At camp, Riley really wants to impress an older star player named Val (Lilimar Hernandez). To do so, Anxiety, usurping Joy, increasingly sacrifices core beliefs to manically build Riley a new identity. Joy and others, booted from the control room, again have to work frantically to mount a resistance, while at the same time learning a lesson about the need to reconcile — not just try to forget — less happy memories.

“Inside Out 2,” which arrives after a period of soul-searching for Pixar, both recaptures some of the animation studio’s magic and reminds us that rekindling the ambitious spirit of Pixar’s heyday isn’t so easy. The sequel stays close to familiar neural pathways. There are new cerebral puns — the echoing depths of a Sar-"chasm,” a brainstorm that rains light bulbs — and a new cartoon relic of childhood to replace Bing Bong: a character named Bloofy, voiced by Ron Funches. It’s easier to see where this “Inside Out” is headed and a little harder to be dazzled by what unfolds.

But it’s aim is remarkably true. Confronting the struggles and realities of anxiety, particularly for teenage girls, could hardly be a more laudable undertaking. And the care is taken here to illustrate how new impulses can run roughshod over a young person and throw their internal compass out of whack.

Pixar, like other studios wrestling with a new media landscape, has dabbled in recent years with more short-form and digital-friendly content. But Docter has steered Pixar back to focusing on feature films with robust theatrical releases. (“Inside Out 2” is to exclusively play for 100 days in theaters.) So in more ways than one, Mann’s movie feels like a much-needed feature-length refuge from today’s anxiety-producing devices. Unlike many of Pixar’s moving metaphors of parenthood, this one is, affectingly, for the kids.

“Inside Out 2,” a Walt Disney Co. release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for some thematic elements. Running time: 96 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

'I Just Saw a Volcano': The Exorcism Director Describes Working With Russell Crowe

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Veteran actor Russell Crowe is known for his intensity, and that may be intimidating to some filmmakers who work with him. For The Exorcism helmer Joshua John Miller, it wasn't so much intimidating, but it did require some maneuvering to direct an actor with such "raw talent."

Now playing in theaters, The Exorcism stars Crowe as an actor playing a priest in an exorcism horror movie. Ahead of the film's release, director Joshua John Miller and co-writer M.A. Fortin opened up on The Exorcism in a new interview with CBR's Kevin Polowy. During the interview, which can be watched below, the subject turned to Crowe's work on the film, and Miller was asked if he was intimidated by the intensity the Gladiator star brought to the set. Miller said he was not, but he described how it still felt in a way like he was working with a "volcano."

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"More often than not, I think those larger-than-life personalities do what they do because they've been cut from a cloth that's tattered and ripped and there's a tremendous amount of pain... and then add fame to it," Miller said. "I think with Russell, he's such an incredible maestro of his instrument, and work. I don't get intimidated by a lot of people. I don't think I was intimidated by him. I just saw a volcano in front of me, every day ."

"I don't think I was intimidated by him. I just saw a volcano in front of me, every day."

The director added, "I just knew that this is part of his genius, and we just have to walk carefully around it, and carefully guide this very powerful natural guy, because his talent is clearly not overly trained. I think it's raw talent ... You're dealing with someone whose talent is just so from the hip, that it's not intimidating, it's just I don't know where the lava's going to come out . And I think you're going to have to just carefully manage it and bring that to the screen."

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A James Bridges Quote Comes to Mind for Co-Writer M.A. Fortin

Co-writer M.A. Fortin chimed in to compare working with Crowe to the stories that have been told by director James Bridges about working with Debra Winger. As Fortin recalled, "He said, 'When you work with nice, you get nice, but when you work with sparks, you get fire.' That's Russell in a nutshell ."

The Exorcism also stars Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, Adrian Pasdar, and David Hyde Pierce . It is produced by Kevin Williamson, Ben Fast, and Bill Block.

The Exorcism is now playing in movie theaters.

Source: CBR

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‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ Review: Older, but Never Wiser

In their latest buddy cop movie, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are still speeding through Miami. The franchise has rarely felt so assured, relaxed and knowingly funny.

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Martin Lawrence, in a burgundy track suit, kneels on a blue car and holds a gun with one hand. Will Smith, in a black tank top and pants, runs with a gun up to the car.

By Robert Daniels

Two years after Will Smith slapped the comedian Chris Rock on the Academy Awards stage, it feels bizarre that he needs a franchise called “Bad Boys” to rekindle his star power. Smith and his co-star, Martin Lawrence, are two producers of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the stylishly chaotic lark by the directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, suggesting outsize roles as star-auteurs and the importance for this installment to be a hit. In their hands, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” throws everything at the wall, and much of it sticks.

Though the third “Bad Boys” installment was released in early 2020, a few months before the George Floyd murder spurred Black Lives Matter protests, that film could be seen in some ways as apologizing for its Michael Bay past and its “copaganda” roots.

But this is something else — a silly buddy comedy that opens poignantly with the wedding of Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Christine (Melanie Liburd). There, Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) has a heart attack, a near-death experience that soon makes him feel invincible; Lowrey, however, is rendered vulnerable by debilitating panic attacks. It’s clear that these two hypermasculine men, still speeding through Miami in fast, slick cars, are aging.

Their friend Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) has been framed — after his death — in a cartel’s money laundering scheme, by corrupt government officials and the brooding mercenary James McGrath (Eric Dane). Lowrey and Burnett work to clear Captain Howard’s name, and in the process this film somehow becomes a prison-break movie, involving Lowrey’s incarcerated son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), and a revenge subplot involving Howard’s daughter Judy (Rhea Seehorn). Along the way there are nods to fan favorites, a cameo by Tiffany Haddish, and Miami gangsters hunting a wanted Lowrey and Burnett.

The lurid lighting and grandiose filmmaking mirror the extravagant plotting. A frantic shootout in a club is viciously edited. In other major set pieces, the camera, sometimes taking a first-person-shooter perspective, zips, darts and spins past falling bodies toward Smith and Lawrence, who banter playfully.

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New emotions emerge in 'Inside Out 2' — including nostalgia for the original film

Justin Chang

Joy and Anxiety (voiced by Amy Poehler and Maya Hawke) meet in Riley's head in Inside Out 2. Disney/Pixar hide caption

As Inside Out 2 gets under way, things are looking up for Riley, the hockey-loving kid who moved with her parents from Minnesota to San Francisco in the first Inside Out . She’s adjusted to her new life, school and friends, and her five personified emotions — who share the high-tech headquarters of her brain — have learned to work together in relative harmony. Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler , is still mostly in charge, but now she and Sadness — the incomparable Phyllis Smith — make a great team, along with the other key emotions, Anger, Fear and Disgust.

But now Riley is 13, which means pimples, growth spurts and a much more complicated emotional life. The director Kelsey Mann, taking over for the first film’s Pete Docter , cleverly dramatizes the onset of puberty as a huge disruption for Joy and Company, who don’t know why their usual routine is suddenly causing Riley to undergo wild mood swings. It turns out, a new emotion has joined headquarters: Anxiety, voiced by a terrific Maya Hawke.

Left: The Inside Out character Sadness. Right: Clinical social worker Kristi Zybulewski dressed up as Sadness for Halloween with blue face and blue hair.

The 'Inside Out' movies give kids an 'emotional vocabulary.' Therapists love that

Anxiety has brought along her own team of emotions. They’re basically the three E’s: Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment, voiced by Ayo Edebiri , Adèle Exarchopoulos and Paul Walter Hauser. Some of this stretches conceptual credibility: Surely this isn’t the first time in her life that Riley has experienced some of those feelings. But that’s part of the whimsical pleasure of the Inside Out films: It’s fun to feel your own brain arguing with how it’s represented. It’s also fun to see new regions of Riley’s mental landscape, like the giant ravine that fuels her contemptuous side — naturally, it’s called the Sar-chasm.

The story kicks into gear when Riley is sent to an elite three-day hockey camp, where she’s forced to make some tough decisions, like whether to stick with her two closest friends or hang out with the cool older kids. As the pressure on Riley mounts and the competition gets more cutthroat, it’s Anxiety who emerges as the movie’s villain.

Clockwise from top left: Inside Out 2, Thelma, Twisters, Hit Man, Fancy Dance and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.

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Hawke does a great job of making the character’s polite bundle-of-nerves routine a little more annoying — and sinister — in every scene. Anxiety basically engineers a hostile takeover of Riley’s mind, banishing Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust to the outskirts of consciousness, and setting out to mold Riley into a more successful version of herself. What she’s unwittingly doing is making Riley more ambitious and conniving.

Inside Out 2 , in other words, is something of an anti-stress movie, where unchecked drivenness can destroy a person’s true sense of self. It’s hard to argue with that, but it’s also hard not to push back a little. This isn’t the first Pixar movie that’s tried to teach us to lighten up and let things go, a lesson that dates as far back as the first Toy Story. But it’s always struck me as a bit rich coming from Pixar, given the hyper-ambition and perfectionism that have long defined the studio’s brand.

From The 'Inside Out,' A Lively Look Inside A Young Mind

Fortunately, there is a better, deeper message at the heart of Inside Out 2 , that encourages us to take a more expansive view of ourselves — to acknowledge that we all have the capacity for good and bad. As in the first movie, the goal is to strive for balance, embrace complexity and learn to be OK with imperfection.

I’m trying to do that myself with Inside Out 2 , which, despite its many pleasures, is a pretty imperfect movie. It isn’t nearly as emotionally overwhelming as its predecessor, but how could it be? The first Inside Out was a piercing lament for childhood’s end, with Joy and Sadness’ frenemy dynamic as its irresistible core.

Now, Riley’s older and maturing, and it’s natural that her latest adventure should hit us differently. But there are also some bewildering choices here that suggest the story could have used, well, a rethink. There’s one overlong sequence, in which Joy and her friends encounter memories of old cartoon and video-game characters buried deep in Riley’s mind; it’s a cheap gag, and it almost pulled me out of the movie entirely. And there’s a recurring joke, involving Riley’s sense of Nostalgia, that strikes a weirdly sour note. Ironically, it made me feel a little nostalgic myself — for the days when Pixar would have known to leave a bit like that on the cutting-room floor.

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A Beautiful Mind movie review (2001)
A Beautiful Mind. The Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash Jr. still teaches at Princeton, and walks to campus every day. That these commonplace statements nearly brought tears to my eyes suggests the power of "A Beautiful Mind," the story of a man who is one of the greatest mathematicians, and a victim of schizophrenia.
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A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) Rating: 10/10. A Beautiful Mind's greatest achievement, in my humble opinion, is the way it makes schizophrenia accessible to "sane" people. The general public knows schizophrenics tend to talk to themselves, repeat certain actions and do things generally at odds with the norm.
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A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American biographical drama film about the mathematician John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, played by Russell Crowe.The film is directed by Ron Howard based on a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman, who adapted the 1998 biography by Sylvia Nasar.In addition to Crowe, the film's cast features Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Judd Hirsch, Josh ...
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2001. PG-13. Universal Pictures. 2 h 15 m. Summary A human drama about the struggle of a true genius, inspired by events in the life of John Forbes Nash, Jr. [Universal Pictures] Biography. Drama. Mystery. Directed By: Ron Howard.
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Movie Review. As a graduate student at Princeton in 1947, math whiz John Nash won't set foot in a classroom for fear of dulling his creative genius. ... But as taut and beguiling as A Beautiful Mind may be as a political thriller/psychological drama, the film's themes of marital devotion and one man's obsessive quest for personal ...
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Of course any movie that traffics in biography must edit, foreshorten, emphasize and condense, but ''A Beautiful Mind'' goes further, becoming a piece of historical revisionism on the order of ''J ...
Review of A Beautiful Mind
Review of A Beautiful Mind. By ... It's a pleasure, then, to report that A Beautiful Mind is actually a very good movie. And if it was made on some level as Oscar bait, that's okay too. This is a ...
A Beautiful Mind Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 8 ): Kids say ( 26 ): This is an extraordinary story, and it has been made into an extraordinary movie. Crowe is, as always, simply magnificent in a role that would provide irresistible temptation for showboating for most actors. There are superb performances by everyone in the cast, including Connelly (an Oscar-winner ...
A Beautiful Mind
John Nash, despite his eccentricities and lack of tact, is an engaging and intelligent character. Nor is it some kind of contrived bit of romance, where boy meets girl, girl saves boy's soul. At ...
A Beautiful Mind: A Psychological Review
Nov 29, 2023. 1. A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American biographical drama film that chronicles the life of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who struggles with schizophrenia. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Ron Howard, Best Adapted Screenplay for Akiva Goldsman, and Best Supporting Actress for ...
"A Beautiful Mind" Review
Ron Howard's Oscar-winning film, "A Beautiful Mind," is, on the surface, an easy film to peg. It is the story of John Nash (Russell Crowe), one of America's most brilliant mathematicians and also a man diagnosed with schizophrenia. Crowe's performance of Nash, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on game theory, is a multi-layered ...
A Beautiful Mind Review
Release Date: 21 Feb 2002. Running Time: 136 minutes. Certificate: 12. Original Title: A Beautiful Mind. Playing the mentally ill has always been a fast-track to critical and Oscar success, and so ...
A Beautiful Mind Ending Explained
The ending of A Beautiful Mind says some problems can only be solved with the heart, showing John Nash earning the Nobel Prize despite his struggles with schizophrenia. While the historical accuracy of A Beautiful Mind is questionable on a number of levels, it was a big hit when it was released, earning five Academy Award nominations in 2002, winning four categories, including Best Picture ...
Movie Review: "A Beautiful Mind" (2001)
Movie: "A Beautiful Mind" Year Nominated: 2002 Director: Ron Howard Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes Did It Win?: Yes. The story of Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash (Russell Crowe). "A Beautiful Mind" is directed by Ron Howard, who has directed numerous Oscar nominated nominated films such as "Apollo 13," "Cinderella Man," and "Frost/Nixon."
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
A mathematical genius, John Nash made an astonishing discovery early in his career and stood on the brink of international acclaim. But the handsome and arrogant Nash soon found himself on a harrowing journey of self-discovery. From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash, Jr. experienced it all.
A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind, American biographical film, released in 2001, that told the story of American Nobel Prize winner John Nash, whose innovative work on game theory in mathematics was in many ways overshadowed by decades of mental illness.Parts of the film, which is set largely on the campus of Princeton University against a backdrop of Cold War intrigue, are seen from Nash's delusional ...
A Beautiful Mind: Everything The Movie Changed From Real Life
A Beautiful Mind dramatizes the true story of mathematician John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics who was known for his pioneering contributions to game theory. Directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe as Nash, the movie focuses on his time as a gifted Princeton student and how he went down a nightmarish spiral after working as a cryptographer for the CIA.
Movie Critique: Analyzing "A Beautiful Mind" Through A Psychological
The National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH) defines schizophrenia as a "chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves" ("Schizophrenia"). In the film A Beautiful Mind, protagonist John Nash experiences this disorder and its effects firsthand. The movie portrays Nash at several points ...
Movie Review: A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind is a powerful account of the life of Nobel Prize winner and mathematician John Nash. The movie depicts Nash's journey through life with schizophrenia. Nash displays many characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia, including hallucinations, delusions, fear of persecution, and lack of interpersonal relationships. In the beginning of the movie, Nash is an introverted, focused young ...
A Beautiful Mind Movie Review
Directed by Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind is an inspiring American movie, which explores the story of a successful young Mathematician, John Nash. In the story, Nash tries to find an original idea while in a graduate school where he interacts with many people most of whom he does not like. Get a custom Essay on A Beautiful Mind. 812 writers online.
Movie Review: 'The Devil's Bath,' Coming Soon to Shudder
'The Devil's Bath,' a deeply twisted and beautiful new thriller from the makers of 'Goodnight Mommy,' pulls you in with its captivating strangeness. But it's also deeply upsetting.
Kevin Costner defends casting his son in 'Horizon' after awful film reviews
Kevin Costner is the star, director and co-writer of "Horizon: An American Saga." AP "Horizon" currently has a rating of 43% on Rotten Tomatoes.. BBC wrote in their scathing review that a ...
Movie Review: Peace (and pieces) of mind 'Inside Out 2'
This image released by Disney/Pixar shows, from left, Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, Embarrassment, voiced by Paul Walter Hauser, Envy, voiced by Ayo Edebiri, Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, Disgust, voiced by Liza Lapira, Anger, voiced by Lewis Black (foreground), Fear, voiced by Tony Hale, and Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith, in a scene from "Inside Out 2." (Disney/Pixar via AP)
'I Just Saw a Volcano': The Exorcism Director Describes Working ...
A James Bridges Quote Comes to Mind for Co-Writer M.A. Fortin Co-writer M.A. Fortin chimed in to compare working with Crowe to the stories that have been told by director James Bridges about working with Debra Winger. As Fortin recalled, "He said, 'When you work with nice, you get nice, but when you work with sparks, you get fire.'
'Bad Boys: Ride or Die' Review: Older, but Never Wiser
The lurid lighting and grandiose filmmaking mirror the extravagant plotting. A frantic shootout in a club is viciously edited. In other major set pieces, the camera, sometimes taking a first ...
'Inside Out 2' review: A pretty imperfect movie, despite its many
Inside Out 2 catches up with protagonist Riley at age 13, just as Anxiety enters her emotional life. But despite its many pleasures, the film lacks the emotional wallop of the original.
Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs (TV Special 2023)
Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs: Directed by John McKeever. With Shane Gillis. Follow up to Shane Gillis: Live in Austin special.

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