I read the book A Beautiful Mind at some point in high school but I was refraining from watching the movie only because I never really liked biographical dramas. I didn’t really like how they decide to exaggerate certain life events or how there are inconsistencies in the stories. If it was remotely nonfiction in nature, I’d rather watch a documentary which would try it’s best to be as objective as possible. I thought that even docudramas would warp the story.Or at least I thought that way until I got a bit older and saw The Theory of Everything which I really liked. I guess that softened me to finally watching A Beautiful Mind which featured another prominent member of society,  John Nash. Unfortunately, the movie did omit another major fact about Nash’s life.  The movie excluded Nash’s relationship with Eleanor Stier and the birth of his son, John David Stier.

However, I liked how the film kind of showed how schizophrenia can effect the different aspects of life, whether that be personal or professional. I am currently taking a course on psychopathology and I recently watched the movie once more since I thought it might help me relax.  Since it is finals season and the information is new, I’m kind of surprised how Nash’s symptoms started to become obvious at age 31.Usually, if I remember correctly, schizophrenic symptoms start to arise in males around mid-adolescent and early adulthood. I do recall that Nash was somewhat impulsive as a young man and i wonder if that was somewhat of a manifestation of what would later. Since he passed away recently, there is a Times article on him that describes his early life as well. The Times article reported him to be an odd child which is characteristic of children who are at risk of developing schizophrenia. Even at Princeton, he was described as having odd habits and being a little arrogant. Perhaps, I’m looking way too into this but, his break shouldn’t have been very surprising or at least that’s what most people say in retrospect. I liked how the movie depicted that Nash decided to stop his medication because it was making him sick as most antipsychotics can. This is fairly common with people with these kinds of breaks and it resulted in another schizophrenic break which is sad. I guess another aspect to this film is that it is kind of a morale booster in that you can be in an incredibly awful situation and it may just work out. Nash was able to teach again and he remarried his wife.  I have attached the article on him just in case anyone wanted to take a look.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/science/john-nash-a-beautiful-mind-subject-and-nobel-winner-dies-at-86.html?_r=0