John Nash, Indeed a Beautiful Mind

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2007)

How can a schizophrenic be of such genius and function at such a level that he commands the highest honor given to human beings, the Oslo awards given for work that progresses mankind, the Nobel Prize for Scientific Excellence. The judges there go to great levels to prevent the awards from being denigrated by going to some charlatan, as the knighthoods of England have become.
Having now seen the documentary on this exceptional man's life, I understand more about the particular life a schizophrenic lives. Even the physical structure of his skull somehow creates the 'voices', which of course is Mr. Nash speaking to himself. Just as we are often beset by temptation, with cartoons showing the devil on one shoulder and an angel on another, such was the form these voices took for him.
What is even more amazing when we see his 'recovery' in the movie, is from his own admission, a product of his fantastic intelligence. He uses the 'faulty' organ, his brain, to figure out how to 'be sane', foregoing the drugs of the early years that caused him much psychic pain. The description of the experiments performed on him and his treatment in the New Jersey asylum are disgusting,much as the shocking treatments (literally and figuratively) being given children today in Canton, Ma. The mothers of his sons were given proper credit for staying with him, despite his increasingly weird behavior, and his inability to be a nurturing father to his sons. However, that did not preclude the older son from accompanying his father on trips in his adulthood, to keep him from being lured off by his illness to wander Europe, as he did earlier.
It is also an indication of how physiological his mental illness, how congenital, when we discover that his 2nd son is also a Math whiz and also schizophrenic. What is even more amazing to me, as a Math major, is the support he received from his fellow math students and teachers at MIT and Princeton, who..instead of viewing him as a rival and a weirdo....stood by him and gave him the support so many victims of mental illness fail to receive. For any of you who have friends or kin who suffer from some form of mental aberration, I strongly suggest this movie, both "A Beautiful Mind" and the documentary on the man himself, John Nash.
What is left out of the Hollywood movie, but included in the documentary gives us much insight into what movie producers think the public wants. Quite frankly, I believe "a Beautiful Mind" would have been much more nuanced and yes, enjoyable, had we been shown the whole story.
You will also find interesting the revelation you hear from him: "I stopped taking the medicine, because it inhibited my work, and decided to refuse to listen to the voices, knowing how they were generated." My son has ADHD and is now a computer professional with 3 beautiful children. He says, "I wish you had not given me Ritalin, because I felt like I was 2 people in one body. If one of my children shows hyperactive tendencies, I will do ANYTHING before I try drugs." Food for thought. Do we drug our children for THEIR sakes, or our own?