The movie by the title ‘A Beautiful Mind’ is a story of John Nash (Russell Crowe) who was a mathematician genius recognized through the Noble prize in 1994, he started in Princeton in the late 1940s. He was so obsessed with his work despite his refusal to attend classes and his unusual behavior of writing mathematical formulas on the library windows; he was a genius of his own, and this made him a successful person professionally. After delivering excellent papers on game theory, he wedded Connelly who was a very beautiful and intelligent woman. When Nash had a mental breakdown Alice Connelly was able to stay with him due to her love and courage. Nash work with Harris in a code breaking task which was for the government and he was left isolated due to madness but his wife was there for comfort.
A review of this movie regarding the psychiatric patient shows how genius and madness work, how Nash a genius of his kind succumbed to paranoid schizophrenia. Nash, being a genius is given the most sensitive jobs like L.A confidential, ‘the Insider’ which leads him to think until he descends into madness. Being a brilliant man, his illness brings his efforts down (Nasar 119). Despite being a psychiatric patient Nash continued with his work of teaching mathematical works even by the age of seventy three, and though he loses his job due to hospitalization, there is a clear illustration that psychiatric disorders can be contained within a certain duration. Psychiatric patients experience hallucinations during illness and there is also mental relapse; Nash has a recurrence about the cold war which is a paranoid delusion of what he may have come in contact with. He recalls in his hallucinations about his former college mates and CIA supervisor (Nasar 231).
In the movie, Nash appears to be unrealistic because after developing schizophrenia which results in his mental breakdown an ultimately lead to hallucinations and eccentric behavior, he refuses to take the prescribed medicines after realizing that the drugs enhance his sex drive and the senses are made dull by the drugs. His wife Alicia is realistic, she is different from many women who run when the husband fall sick, even after the divorce, she stays with her former husband to manage the illness since schizophrenics patients depend mostly on support in terms of therapy, medication and general support (Nasar 387). Nash relies on drugs when his health condition gets worse; he takes anti-psychotic drugs, but the diseases flares up when he is not on medication. Nash device ways of controlling his symptoms and this shows that he is realistic, e.g. when he feels hallucinations he ignores them.
In a real life situation, diagnosis of schizophrenia can be recovered, just like Nash recovered solely without treatment; the movie, ‘a Beautiful mind’ shows how psychiatry’s delusion continues to spread in us through our culture. Nash was considered a legendary genius in Princeton after the administration realized that he was the one writing mathematical formulas and messages on the black board at night.
After being sick for long time, Nash was regarded full recovered and he went back to the university to teach mathematics and due to his contributions in the field of mathematics he was awarded the Nobel Prize. A beautiful mind in the end triumphed by conquering illness.
Work Cited
Nasar, Sylvia. A beautiful mind: a biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. New York: Simon & Schuster Press, 1998. Print.