A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind
Directedby	Ron Howard
Producedby	Brian Grazer Ron Howard
Writtenby	Sylvia Nasar (book), Akiva Goldsman
Starring	Russell Crowe Jennifer Connelly Ed Harris Paul Bettany Christopher Plummer Adam Goldberg Anthony Rapp Josh Lucas Judd Hirsch
Musicby	James Horner
Distributedby	Universal Pictures (Domestic) DreamWorks SKG (International)
Releasedate(s)	December 21 , 2001
Running time	135 min
Language	English
Budget	$60,000,000

At the beginning of the film, John Nash arrives as a new graduate student at Princeton University . He is a recipient of the prestigious Carnegie Prize for mathematics . He meets his roommate Charles, a literature student, who soon becomes his best friend. He also meets a group of other promising math and science graduate students, Martin Hansen, Sol, and Bender, with whom he strikes up an awkward friendship.

The first part of the film establishes Nash's intellectual stamina and his propensity to be too outspoken in his social life. He admits that he is better with numbers than people, saying, "I don't like them much, and they don't much like me." He sometimes goes out to a bar with his fellow students to try to meet women, but is always unsuccessful. However, the experience is what ultimately inspires his fruitful work in the concept of governing dynamics , a theory in mathematical economics . After the conclusion of Nash's studies as a student at Princeton, he accepts a prestigious appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with his friends Sol and Bender. It is while at this post that he meets Alicia, a student with whom he falls in love and eventually marries. While at Princeton, Nash runs into his former roommate Charles and meets Charles's young niece Marcee. He also encounters a mysterious Department of Defense agent, William Parcher. Nash is invited to a United States Department of Defense facility ( The Pentagon ) to crack a complex encryption of an enemy telecommunication. Nash is able to decipher the code mentally. Parcher observes Nash's performance from above, while partially concealed behind a screen. (His general appearance and behaviour is similar to that of the men in black , though Nash addresses him as Big Brother .) Parcher later encourages Nash to look for patterns in magazines and newspapers, ostensibly to thwart a Soviet plot. After a harrowing chase scene and exchange of gunfire, Nash becomes increasingly paranoid and begins to behave erratically.

Russell Crowe as John Nash

After observing this erratic behavior, Sol follows Nash during one of his late night drop-offs of "top secret Soviet codes". Sol sees Nash place the documents into a drop-box at a long empty building, and reports this behaviour to Nash's superiors. He sees that he is being watched during a lecture. Caught trying to flee, he is forcibly sedated and sent to a psychiatric facility . Initially, Nash's internment seemed like confirmation of his belief that the Soviets were trying to extract information from him, and that being taken by the officials of that psychiatric facility was a kidnapping by Soviet agents.

Alicia, desperate to help her husband, visits the drop-box and retrieves the never-opened "top secret" documents that Nash delivered there. When confronted with this evidence, Nash is finally convinced that he has been hallucinating . The Department of Defense agent William Parcher and Nash's secret assignment to decode Soviet messages was in fact all a delusion . Even more surprisingly, Nash's friend Charles and his niece Marcee are also only products of Nash's mind.

After a painful series of insulin shock therapy sessions, Nash is released on the condition that he agrees to take antipsychotic medication. However, these drugs create negative side-effects that affect his relationship with his wife and, most dramatically, his intellect. Frustrated, Nash secretly stops taking his medication, triggering a relapse of his psychosis. While bathing his infant son, Nash becomes distracted and wanders off. Alicia barely manages to save their child from being drowned. When she confronts Nash, he claims that his (hallucinatory) friend Charles was watching their son. Charles, Marcee, and Parcher all appear to John and urge him to kill his wife rather than allow her to lock him up again. Nash finally realizes that these people are products of his own mind when he observes that Marcee is the same age that she was when he first met her several years before. Only then does he accept that all three of these people are, in fact, part of his psychosis.

The film version of A Beautiful Mind was created by Universal Pictures and DreamWorks . In 2001 , the film was awarded four Oscars for:

• Adapted Screenplay : Akiva Goldsman
• Best Picture : Brian Grazer and Ron Howard
• Directing : Ron Howard
• Supporting Actress : Jennifer Connelly

It also received four other nominations:

• Best Actor in a Leading Role : Russell Crowe
• Film Editing : Mike Hill , Daniel P. Hanley
• Best Makeup : Greg Cannom , Colleen Callaghan
• Original Music Score : James Horner

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