An unflinching depiction of the tortures of genius

Rating: 9/10 (18 August 2002)

As someone who has spent some time studying the history of science, and so presumes to know a little about the circumstances from which bold new discoveries have emerged, I found this film to ring true, for the most part at least.
John Nash is a bold young man with the self-confidence to propose a theory that overturns 150 years of economic theory. He is ready and willing to throw out the old rules, and make up new ones. Problem is, this attitude can be dangerous: get into the habit of throwing out old views and looking at things in new ways, and you may find yourself cut loose and set adrift, bereft of a sound footing, unable to be sure of anything. After all, we can only remake our world a little at a time.
Of course there is no simple relation between his achievements and his mental illness, and it would be mistaken to suppose otherwise. But the movie points, persuasively I thought, in the general direction of a connection. Nash is adept at discerning patterns--in the stars, in coded signals, whatnot. He takes this talent too far in the same direction, and it is transformed from an enviable talent into a monstrosity, a symptom of mental disease.
The eccentric genius is after all one of our most well-entrenched clichés. And while Roger Ebert writes, in his review of this movie, that "Nash has been compared to Newton, Mendel and Darwin, but was also for many years just a man muttering to himself in the corner," it happens that Newton, Mendel, Darwin themselves all did things equivalent to muttering to themselves in a corner. Obsession and its concomitant behavior seems to be a factor common to all four men.