Some interesting issues raised

Rating: 7/10 (22 April 2005)

I enjoyed the film but thought that the makeup jobs could have done with a bit more work (especially Nash's wife at the end - how fake did that look?).
Something which I feel people have missed out on commenting on is the way that the secret agents are depicted. After reading Patrick Radden Keefe's book, "Chatter" the author gives an insight into the workings of the 'secret agencies' such as the NSA, CIA etc. The author goes on to tell us the difficulties of finding out information and that many people he interviews try to hide the fact that the workings of these agencies exist at all. It seems to gives 'us' an uncertainty as to whether we are being monitored, being surveyed on? by the outside world or is it just paranoia?
I like the way Beautiful mind shows Nash continually looking for threats, not being safe in the knowledge that he holds a secret.
But, although we find out that Nash is someone with a mental condition, i'm sure these worries do affect the 'real' people who work in the Cyrpto departments. It must be a challenge to keep things secret and not be able to comment on the line of their work with their family.
Beautiful mind raises these issues nicely which i'm sure, in reality, do exist for some.
The numbers are an interesting part of the film and for me as an art student it is interesting to see Nash go into cracking mode by filtering out the unwanted numbers and focusing on the connections between them.