A Beautiful Mind is one of only a few films that have tackled the theme of mental illness. The film features the life of John Nash, a bright Princeton University student who in the film starts to develop schizophrenia and suffers from delusions. The starring role is played by Russell Crowe. It also features Ed Harris (William Parcher), later to be the voice and actor of his main paranoid delusions. In the film, after seeing John Nash in the Pentagon code breaking, William Parcher instructs John Nash to collect magazine and newspaper cuttings to see if he can see patterns and ideas about a possible Soviet threat to America. He begins to become very obsessive about his work. Little does he know that William Parcher is a hallucination. The film clip below shows John Nash having a schizophrenic episode and being taunted by the actor Ed Harris. I think it is quite powerful cinematography. I feel this because I was also having psychosis at the same time the film came out. I could really relate to it. However, I was suffering from bipolar psychotic mania not schizophrenia. The two are quite similar.
Later on in the movie one of his students, Alicia Larde (played by Jennifer Connelly), invites John out on a date and they get married. While performing a lecture to his students he sees what he believes to be Soviet agents infiltrating the room. He runs away but he is caught by Dr Rosen (Christopher Plummer) who injections him with Thorazine (Chlorpromazine in the UK). The film portrays what it was like to be in a psychiatric hospital in the early 1950s. All the key events that has happened in the film turn out to be hallucinations or delusions.
He is discharged from hospital. However, he stops taking his medication because of the side effects. John Nash later continues to look at newspaper and magazine cuttings in secret, bringing on the same obsessive thoughts that he had before. In the 1970s John Nash began to lecture again and he later won the Nobel Prize in 1994 for Economic Sciences, or Game Theory as it was known. He made a full recovery.
There are many newer medications for schizophrenia known as atypical antipsychotics or second generation antipsychotics. These are better tolerated than first generation antipsychotics and more effective. They tend to work well if a suitable one is chosen but sometimes the patient remains treatment resistant.
I rate A Beautiful Mind 9/10 because it tackles difficult topics. It is very well acted and I like it because it is emotional. Mental health is still a stigma even to this day.
A Beautiful Mind is on NOW TV and Paramount +
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