This
film tells the story of the struggle of a genius mathematician named John
Forbes Nash, who managed to create an economic concept which now serve as the
basis of contemporary economic theory. During the Cold War, Nash suffered from
schizophrenia which makes living in hallucinations and always shadowed by the
fear that he had to fight hard to recover and won the Nobel prize in 1994, when
he entered old age.
This
story begins in 1947, John Nash (Crowe) arrives
at Princeton University. He is
co-recipient, with Martin Hansen (Lucas), of the prestigious Carnegie
Scholarship for mathematics. At a reception, he meets a group of
other promising math and science graduate students, Richard Sol (Goldberg),
Ainsley (Jason Gray-Stanford), and Bender (Rapp).
He also believes he meets his roommate Charles Herman (Bettany), a literature
student. Nash does not realize it yet, but he is suffering from a mental
illness, and Herman is a figment of his imagination.
Nash
comes under increasing pressure to publish, but he refuses until he finds a
truly original idea. His inspiration comes when he and his fellow graduate
students discuss how to approach a group of women at a bar. Hansen quotes Adam Smith and
advocates "every man for himself", but Nash argues that a cooperative
approach would lead to better chances of success. This leads to a new concept of
governing dynamics which Nash develops and publishes.
On the strength of this he is offered an appointment at MITwhere Sol and Bender
join him.
Some
years later, Nash thinks he is invited to the Pentagon to crack encrypted enemy
telecommunication. Again, this is all in Nash's mind only. Nash is able to
decipher the code mentally, to the astonishment of other codebreakers. He
considers his regular duties at MIT uninteresting and beneath his talents, so
he is pleased to be given a new assignment by mysterious supervisor, William
Parcher (Harris) of the United States Department of Defense,
to look for patterns in magazines and newspapers in order to thwart a Sovietplot.
Nash becomes increasingly obsessive about searching for these hidden patterns
and believes he is followed when he delivers his results to a secret mailbox.
Meanwhile
a student, Alicia Larde (Connelly), asks him to dinner, and the two fall in
love. On a return visit to Princeton, Nash runs into Charles and meets Charles'
young niece Marcee (Vivien Cardone), whom he adores. With
Charles' encouragement he proposes to Alicia and they marry.
Nash
begins to fear for his life after witnessing a shootout between Parcher and
Soviet agents, but Parcher blackmails him into staying on his assignment. While
delivering a guest lecture at Harvard University, Nash attempts to flee from
what appear to be foreign agents, led by Dr. Rosen (Plummer). After punching
Rosen in an attempt to flee, Nash is forcibly sedated and sent to a psychiatric
facility. He believes the facility is run by the Soviets.
Dr.
Rosen tells Alicia that Nash has schizophrenia and
that Charles, Marcee and Parcher exist only in his imagination. Alicia
investigates and finally confronts Nash with the unopened documents he had
delivered to the secret mailbox. Nash is given a course of insulin shock therapy and
eventually released. Frustrated with the side-effects of theantipsychotic medication
he is taking, he secretly stops taking it. This causes a relapse and he meets
Parcher again.
After
an incident where Nash endangers his infant son and accidentally knocks Alicia
and the baby to the ground (thinking he's stopping Parcher from killing her),
she flees the house in fear with their child. Nash steps in front of her car to
prevent her from leaving. He tells Alicia, "She never gets old",
referring to Marcee, who although years have passed since their first
encounter, has remained exactly the same age and is still a little girl. With
this, he finally accepts that they are part of his hallucinations. Against Dr.
Rosen's advice, Nash decides not to restart his medication, believing that he
can deal with his symptoms in another way. Alicia decides to stay and support
him in this.
Nash
approaches his old friend and rival, Martin Hansen, now head of the Princeton
mathematics department, who grants him permission to work out of the library
and audit classes. Years pass and as Nash grows older, he learns to ignore his
hallucinations and earns the privilege of teaching again.
In
1994, Nash is honored by his fellow professors for his achievement in
mathematics, and goes on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize
in Economics for his revolutionary work on game theory.
The movie ends as Nash and Alicia leave the auditorium in Stockholm; Nash sees
Charles, Marcee, and Parcher standing to one side and watching him.
Nash's
story of struggle against this disease very well to emulate. It is conceivable
that Nash could not control himself and without the support of his beloved
wife, so that Nash will live like a living corpse - the body in the real world,
but the soul within his own mind. Message of this film is essentially a smart
person is not the person who can master any science, but people who are able to
master himself in a clever and able to fight off despair.
