The story of John Nash as portrayed in A Beautiful Mind was constructed to showcase the determination and perseverance of the tormented professor. The film covers the life of John Nash, a mathematics scholar, who developed one of the greatest advancements to game theory (the Nash Equilibrium) while also suffering from mental illness. It showcases the will power with which Nash essentially forces himself to ignore his hallucinations and focus on getting back into mainstream life. His wife also plays an important role by supporting him in his struggle. The story is certainly inspiring, even though I later learned that portions of Nash’s actual life are different from what was presented on film. Nevertheless, the story in the movie is what we should focus on, and we see from this story that determination and mental strength can lead to amazing results.

I knew nothing about Nash’s life before the film and so I thought the way the filmmakers depicted Nash’s descent into madness was done quite well. In the film, Nash is doing his best to be successful in life, when suddenly his work becomes very serious. It is only a great deal of time into the movie that the audience finds out that entire portions of the movie were merely Nash’s hallucinations. It all made for an interesting story. I did some research later and I did find out that some things were changed from the actual story. One of the most trivial was that in the film Nash goes mad in 1954 when in reality he started having mental issues in 1959. Why the filmmakers felt the need to change that one detail still confuses me. There are a series of other changes made to Nash’s life which made for a more compelling story and I understand why the changes were made. However, because of those changes I think it is important to focus solely on the story portrayed in the film and to consider how we can be more focused and determined in our lives.