A Beautiful Mind is a story about a man coming to grips with the limitations of his mind.

Rating: 6/10 (29 July 2012)

Russell Crowe, playing John Nash, makes the focus of the later part of his life trying to come up with a "truly original idea". As he attempts to achieve this process, we watch as he struggles with relationships and interactions with other people. Having limited social grace, in a notably prestigious school such as Princeton, serves to prove as almost rewarding considering his luck at catching the attention of women. This is most especially true as he meets a beautiful girl named Alicia, Jennifer Connelly, who turns out to be his new love interest. When Nash inadvertently becomes acquainted with a man named Parcher, played by Ed Harris, the reality lines become blurred as Nash struggles to figure out whom and what is real, and what is not. In watching A Beautiful Mind, one can see the common theme is to battling our own realities. Nash makes it truly his entire focus on strengthening and using his mind for realistic and meaningful purposes. In his attempt to develop "a truly original idea", he becomes engulfed in his own reality and is unaware that in fact he is displaying schizophrenic tendencies. Others are engulfed in their own realities as it took many years later for anyone to recognize his need for psychiatric assistance. Associated with these episodes you can see another storyline incorporated as viewers become aware of other's reaction to what is socially acceptable of the time. Although criticism and backlash may be less harsh than our current societal tendencies, Nash suffers from stigmas throughout the rest of the film. Each character faces their own reality, and deviation from what is thought to actually exist, to what actually exists. This film similarly relates to the movie, Fight Club, where an imagination of a counterpart and friend, alter the realities of many other individuals. When Nash suddenly becomes introduced to a young student Alicia, his social limitations serve him well by giving him an endearing and mystifying quality. As the film progresses you are drawn into his secret purpose of decoding cryptography. One becomes excited at his possible discovery and chance of leaving even more social woes behind in his rise to hero status. Ironically his very worst stigma, social awkwardness, is what saves his relationships and his life, but in doing so Nash makes difficult decisions about his treatment. Finally getting close to Alicia and securing their love, allowed someone to finally focus and see an unhindered view into Nash's mind. Crowe and Connelly give suburb performances when considering the emotional state in which they must become a part of. Crowes interpretation on one's reality breaking and social awkwardness is displayed brilliantly through his jerky movements, disheveled appearance, almost vacant eyes, and sometimes mumbling dialogue. Connelly's performance of a wife trying dutifully to support her husband makes one want to break down right along beside her. When she gets angry, becomes concerned, feels lonely, the viewer feels her emotions. Her downcast eyes and her posture begin to sag with the weight of her emotions. We feel her pain and hope for her to be strong for Nash, but also hope for her happiness and freedom of safety. Two techniques I viewed at associated well with the theme were lighting and angle. Lighting was very subdued, echoing the recesses of his mind. Nash constantly focuses on the task, the goal, not the excitement of the journey and other surroundings. Various times when Nash was in Alicia's company, you can understand the change of lighting to a brighter shade as he was happier, not trapped within the limitations of his mind, enjoying the moment. Angle was also very important to the film, as many times you can see how the camera follows him and his unusual actions, or the angle cuts to how someone is socially judging his actions. In addition, many of his earlier public scenes with his schizophrenic counterparts were filmed without his other peer's taking notice, so not only they but the viewer wasn't able to immediately establish anything was wrong. Regardless of whether one believes in the process of medicine to overcome your own realities, one can safely say the definition of reality is very different for every person.