A Beautiful Mind Evaluation

In the beginning of "A Beautiful Mind" directed by Ed Harris, Russell Crowe plays John Nash and is, although transparently nervous and skiddish, of sane mind.

The title would lean one to thinking his character posessed some sort of "beauty" in his nature. Ironically, this tendency only appears towards the end of the movie. Russel Crowe's depiction of John Nash is that of a hard, focused Princeton University student, adamantly and suffocatingly striving more to find a doctoral topic of distinguishability rather than partaking in the normal social functions of Graduate life. This inability to socially mix in with others is clearly evident at this point, and from there, begins to emerge a complexity of the Human Relationship.

As I became more intrigued by Joh Nash's gift of code-breaking, it became increasingly difficult to see how the character became so schizophrenic and intertwined in his own internal conflict. During this time, the story was told in John Nash's perspective and you see the evolution of his turmoil. It is not until his diagnosis and reveal of his mind-altered world, by John's wife, does the viewer begin to grasp how his initial stress of determining his Doctoral theory began to weigh upon his subconscious mind.

It is this weight which caused the schizophrenia and became the center, thematically of how the characters would respond to each other. The husband/wife relationship's outcome was based upon whether the wife stayed with the husband and how the doctor would face his schizophrenia in order to proceed and/or succeed.

Whereas the multiple issues and conflicts create a theme surrounding the fight and survival of the human spirit even if it is one's own (schizophrenic) tendencies which create the conflict, and the universality of it.