A Beautiful Mind (2001)
The truth is, I don’t like people much.
THE SUMMARY: A socially awkward mathematician makes a breakthrough that propels his career into top-secret government work, until he realizes it’s all an illusion of his schizophrenic brain. In the first half, I was yawning, but the second half was excellent, and it evens out into a twisted yet wholesome story of what really matters in life: family. My only major complaint is the movie story is rosier than the real one.
NO MOVIE-PICKER COMMENTARY: A Beautiful Mind was a random selection from IMDb’s top 250 list, after the nominations were rejected by vote two weeks ago. It currently ranks #149.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S AI FACESWAP ART:
Once I’m captured, and forced to teach at the commie school as a prisoner of war.
Insert your own dead baby joke here.
A lecture stopper, indeed.
THE BEST:
The development and reveal of mental illness is well-crafted: I had never seen A Beautiful Mind before, and watched it without any spoilers whatsoever - no prior knowledge of either the movie plot or the true story of John Nash. That added a layer of enjoyment, because until his mental illness was confirmed, I was debating if John is actually crazy or if the feds are just that sneaky. After all, Parcher does a lot of stuff feds would do: he threatens, gaslights, and sets John up for bad situations, all while acting like it’s actually John’s fault. At no point before the reveal did I think the imaginary characters weren’t real, which was a great twist. It puts the viewer through the same experience John had - trouble distinguishing what’s real and what’s an illusion. I’m sure if I watched again attentively, the clues where there.
In sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part (if only that was what happened): Throughout the psychological twists, A Beautiful Mind emphasizes one constant: the union of husband and wife. Alicia maintains the vow to the fullest extent, in sickness and in health, and her support is what gets him to a healthier point of managing his condition. Perhaps the best scene in the movie is Alicia touching John to show him ‘this is real.’
The lesson to learn: whatever nonsense and chaos you encounter, your spouse should be your constant, and you should be for him or her too. If you made a commitment, you don’t bail over tough times. You stay committed to make the tough times easier. As written below, that’s not what actually happened, but the lesson has value regardless.
Men need women to realize their full potential: In a more subtle point about the importance of the union of man and woman, John doesn’t achieve his breakthrough until he strategizes to pick up chicks. The scene may seem silly or trivial, but it’s actually fundamentally crucial: men need women to achieve their full potential. Men, to truly understand your capabilities, get a wife and kids. The natural drive to provide will launch your productivity to its maximum.
There are fates worse than death: John’s doctor Rosen has an amazingly profound quote to describe John’s schizophrenic condition: ‘Imagine if you suddenly learned that the people, the places, the moments most important to you were not gone - not dead, but worse, had never been. What kind of hell would that be?’ This isn’t just a poetic description of mental illness and delusions. It’s useful for even the healthy and clear-minded to consider the nature of loss. We will all lose those we love one day, or they will suffer the loss of us first. There’s great pain in that, but there exists a greater pain still: for the experiences that established that love never to have happened at all. Remember, whether it’s your mom, dad, sibling, spouse, friend, or even just your dog, when the time comes, be grateful for the time you had, not tortured by the time you didn’t. That joy never existing in the first place would be the worse tragedy.
‘Conviction is a luxury of those on the sidelines’: Even if he is just a fed projection of the schizo mind, Parcher has an interesting moment of wisdom too. Discussing the World War II nuking of the Japanese, and the moral considerations of it, Parcher says to Nash: ‘conviction, it turns out, is a luxury of those on the sidelines.’ In more plain phrasing, moral purity is only for those who aren’t in the war.
That’s not to endorse the nuking, or say we shouldn’t discuss the morality of it - it’s just to acknowledge that when the war comes, things get messy, and good men must do terrible things. The only people with clean hands at wartime are those who aren’t in it, and if you carry that philosophy forever, you’ll lose.
The aging is well done: At first, I didn’t understand why all these ‘college students’ looked 40. But that was before I realized the movie was supposed to span nearly an entire lifetime, so it probably does work best with actors in the middle of the age range. Despite everyone looking too old for college years, the aging progression actually looks very good when they get ‘older.’ John’s makeup was especially convincing.
John realizes the truth.
This is real.
THE WORST:
The real story is far less interesting and wholesome: While I think A Beautiful Mind’s movie story is a well-crafted mystery untwisting toward important values, unfortunately it’s not very accurate to the real story of John Nash. John was a schizophrenic with hallucinations, but he did not see false life-like people as depicted. The big prize speech where Nash dedicates the award to his wife didn’t happen for many reasons: first, because John and Alicia weren’t even married, and hadn’t been for decades. They actually divorced in 1963, after only six years of marriage. Second, because John didn’t receive his award individually. He received his Nobel Prize jointly with two other guys, so there was no individual speech to give like this.
Plus John’s split from Alicia was even dicier - before they were married, John had a child with another woman. And while John and Alicia did re-marry in 2001, there are credible claims he was gay.
Hang on in the first half: The movie is fairly boring until John gets to his career stage and working for the government. The college portion is really just context and setup, and it drags a little bit. The important parts of the movie would probably make less sense without it, fair enough, but I’m not sure all the early pieces of the movie are necessary. Trying to explicitly talk the woman at the bar into sex, for example. Funny, sure, kinda. Important to the plot? Not really.
THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. A romanticized depiction of a true story, sure, but one that exaggerates details toward the right values, and keeps you guessing what’s really going on throughout. Probably worthy of watching back with knowledge of what the reality is.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇ Note: if you get a notification saying you have already voted and you haven’t, this is because of an issue with iOS (Apple mobile devices). Try voting on a desktop or laptop computer.
DISCUSS OR REVIEW THE MOVIE WITH OTHER LISTENERS: Check out the dedicated channel on the community Discord server.
NEXT WEEK: Gran Torino (2008). All movie nominations were again rejected in the vote last week, so Gran Torino is a random selection from IMDb’s top-250 list. It currently ranks #177.
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE! June’s movie nominations are from listener Celery Salt. As this list is now twice rejected for random selections, I understand this is all formality, but such is the system. We will have new nominations for July in two weeks. Note: if you get a notification saying you have already voted and you haven’t, this is because of an issue with iOS (Apple mobile devices). Try voting on a desktop or laptop computer.
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