Adjusting perceptions

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2002)

As most are at least aware of the story of "A Beautiful Mind," I see no reason to re-cap. The tale of John Forbes Nash has been brought beautifully to the screen, with much tenderness, compassion and grace. It is ultimately an exhortation to adjust our own perceptions -- to see the world not just as it is, but as it can be.
The film is full of changing perspectives. Nash already sees the world in a different light when we first meet him -- as the film goes on, he begins to adjust himself, to conform to the human race, to learn of love and compassion. We watch him warm up to his Princeton compatriots, and see his heart open to Alicia. Not only this, but Alicia must change her perspective as well. In the midst of John's bumbling proposal, Alicia says, "I need to adjust my girlish notions of romance," and later on, while dealing with her husband's illness, tells a friend that when she is faced with the man as he is, she learns to open her eyes and see him as the man he was..."and suddenly I become that man's wife."
It would be easy for a film such as this to draw Nash's mental struggles and triumphs with a black-and-white brush -- the demons he face must be conquered, and he must overcome them. Instead, the film bravely squares the notion that perhaps (in the words of Norman Bates) we all go a little mad sometimes... and that it is a braver thing to live with your demons than to eliminate them. (This side of glory, what hope do we have of getting away from the demons which haunt us all?) As Nash says towards the end of the film -- "they're still there, I just choose to ignore them." By refusing to demonize paranoid schizophrenia, the film casts the notion that, just perhaps, the line between sanity and insanity is not as fixed as it appears, and therefore those who struggle cannot be demonized or marginalized, but instead given the grace they need to survive.
Perhaps those among us who struggle with their own demons, are in need not of extensive therapy and violent treatment -- it's clear in the film that such treatment marginalizes and reduces Nash -- but instead of understanding, tenderness, and love. I do not wish to minimize the plight of those who struggle with mental illness -- sometimes a straitjacket is as much a protection of them from us as it is the other way around. With family members myself who struggle with varying degrees of mental illness, I know that love isn't all you need. However, there is perhaps more of a need for it in the world than we are willing to give.
Ultimately, the film is a testimony of and about grace. Nash, by all accounts, is a wretched soul, lonely, brilliant, tortured. There is no immediate reason why any one should love him. But it is the grace (undeserving favor) of Alicia that draws him in, that holds him in the midst of his personal Hell, and which gives him the strength he needs to be what he can. May it be so of all of us.