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Princeton University, 1947. Professor Helinger (Judd Hirsch) is welcoming a brilliant new batch of graduated students. Among them is John Nash (Russell Crowe). Nash is a bit off-putting, freely admitting to not liking people very much, and having almost no social skills, he finds many don't like him either. However, he does strike up relationships with several others as they meet up, such as Richard Sol (Adam Goldberg), Bender (Anthony Rapp) and Martin Hansen (Josh Lucas). Nash and Hansen are rivals who seem to relish dissing one another and competing to reach new heights before the other. Nash is in his dorm when a raucous Charles Herman (Paul Bettany) comes in and starts chumming Nash up. At first, Nash is confused as he apparently is surprised to learn he has a roommate, but he lets it go as they begin to bond. Charles is consistently supporting Nash, who is desperate to get published with a new and original idea. Nash even loses a game to Hansen and thinks the game is flawed, as the moves he made should have mathematically meant he'd be the victor instead. Nash rarely attends class, spending all of his time working on patterns and formulas in search of his original idea.
Everyone is out for pizza and beer, and a blonde is flirting with Nash. His buddies tell him to go for it, so he does. It takes about 20 seconds for the blonde to slap him, call him an asshole and leave. Things aren't going any better as far as post-grad placement, and the stress finally makes him crack. Actually, it makes him take his head and crack the window in his dorm. Charles calms him down and the two of them eventually toss the desk out the window, then watch it crash several stories down on the sidewalk. Nash feels better.
Back at the bar again, with Nash and his friends (sans Charles, who never seems to interact with any other of Nash's peers) sitting around a table, drinking beer and eyeing the blonde who's eyeing all of them. This gives Nash an epiphany. If all five of them go after the blonde, none of them can have her, and then all of her friends would reject all of them as well because they wouldn't want to be second-choice. However, if NONE of them go after the blonde, everyone can pair off with a friend, and everyone gets lucky. He spends the next several months working on this idea, which today is known as the Nash Equilibrium and used often in terms of gaming. A set of strategies is a Nash equilibrium if each person knows of everyone else's strategy, and no person can do better by unilaterally changing his or her individual strategy. Nash presents his findings to Helinger, gets published and earned himself placement to Wheeler Labs at MIT, and he recruits Sol and Bender to join him. Everyone celebrates with Nash, including Hansen.
Some years later, Nash is invited to the Pentagon. They've hired him to help crack an encrypted Soviet telecommunication. Nash sees the wall of code and just starts staring. And staring. And staring. He does so for hours, mentally working it out, and he eventually cracks the code. Before being walked out of the secure perimeter, the government men all thank him. As he's leaving, he sees a shadowy figure up above and asks who "Big Brother" is, but gets no answer.
Back at MIT, Nash is upset about having to share the cover of Fortune magazine with other people. Sol and Bender remind him he has a class to teach in 10 minutes. Nash is disinterested in this too, but he goes anyway. The first thing he does is shut the window because of jackhammering outside. Unfortunately, the A/C in the building isn't working either. A girl in the class reopens the window and asks the construction crew if they could hold off for 45 minutes. They say no problem. The girl then opens the rest of the windows too. Nash is impressed and makes a bit of a self-deprecating joke. He seems in better spirits now.
As he's leaving, Nash is stopped by a mysterious man in a dark coat and hat. This is the man Nash saw when leaving the Pentagon. It's William Parcher (Ed Harris) of the Department of Defense. Parcher raves about Nash's codebreaking skills and brings him to an area that Nash thought was vacated. Turns out this area is a secret codebreaking hub with top level security. Parcher says an extremist Soviet group has cells in the United States, and they plan on detonating a nuclear bomb here. Bored and unsatisfied with his MIT duties, Nash gets on board immediately. Parcher has a radium diode device implanted into Nash's arm. This will give him the codes to access a secret mailbox as needed.
The girl from his class pays Nash a visit in his MIT office. She asks why he never came to his class today. He apparently forgot. She asks him to dinner and Nash accepts, even delivering some charm. He learns her name is Alicia (Jennifer Connelly). The dinner date goes very well as there is a definite spark between the two. Days later, Nash continues his work and drops off his findings in a sealed, classified envelope to the secret location and mailbox. However, he notices someone has followed him, so paranoia sets in. The romance continues to bloom between Nash and Alicia, even though he can't tell her anything about his work.
Nash makes a return visit to Princeton and is working outside when a little girl comes up to him and starts asking questions. She then says her uncle told her that he (Nash) can be a bit of a jerk sometimes. That uncle is none other than Nash's former roommate Charles, and the two reunite joyously. The little girl is Charles's niece Marcee (Vivien Cardone). Nash is stressed about his relationship with Alicia. Charles encourages he should take the plunge and get married. So Nash and Alicia do just that. However, Nash still cannot talk about his work, and he is obsessively continuing to hunt through periodicals and delivering his findings to the secret mailbox. Upon one visit, he is again followed, and this time Parcher comes roaring up in a car and tells Nash to get in. A car chase and shootout ensues, with Parcher taking care of the enemy. This freaks Nash out to no end, as he says he didn't sign up for this. He returns home and Alicia asks what happened, since she knows he left the office hours ago and he looks like a mess. Nash won't say.
Parcher visits Nash and they discuss what happened. Nash decides he wants out, but Parcher tells him that's not going to happen. Nash working for them keeps Parcher from letting the Soviets know that Nash exists. Nash rushes home in a panic and tells Alicia to go live with her sister. Alicia tries in vain to find out why Nash is so freaked out. While delivering a lecture at Harvard, several well-dressed men enter the auditorium. Nash flees but they catch up to him outside. One man is Dr. Rosen (Christopher Plummer), a psychiatrist who would like Nash to talk to him. Nash slugs Rosen and runs off again, eventually being caught and subdued while screaming about the Russians. Charles and Marcee witness this all.
Nash comes to in Rosen's office. He's now in a psychiatric hospital. Nash believes Rosen is a Russian spy. He also sees Charles in the office and begins to yell at him for being a traitor. Rosen seems perplexed as to who Nash is yelling at. Alicia, who made the call to Rosen in the first place, visits the facility and sees Nash in his room. Rosen explains the diagnosis. Nash has paranoid schizophrenia, and apparently there are people he sees and hears that are in his mind only, and have been for many years. Rosen asks Alicia if she can find out information about the work Nash was doing. Alicia goes to Nash's office and enters it for the first time, completely overwhelmed and in shock at what she sees. Papers everywhere pinned to the walls, drawings of patterns, etc. Alicia next travels to the secret mailbox, which Sol knew the location of. She finds a completely deserted and boarded up building with a broken fence and mailbox. She tears open the mailbox to see what's inside...
...before visiting her husband at the hospital the next day. Nash begins to whisper, still paranoid about microphones being around, and tells her everything even though it's against protocol. Alicia stops him and begins telling him things that he hadn't told her yet. Nash is stunned that she knows of all this. Alicia pulls out all the envelopes that Nash had been putting into that secret mailbox. They're intact and unopened, a huge stack of them. Alicia tells Nash it's not real, and he's sick. She also admits Sol had followed him, which he how he knew something was wrong. Nash storms out, not believing what he's hearing. That night, Nash is tearing into his arm, drawing lots of blood...but no implant. Nash needs and receives insulin shock therapy for several weeks and is eventually released from the facility.
Many months have passed. Nash and Alicia have a new infant son. Nash is on medication, now living at home working on ideas, but the meds make him lethargic and it's hard for him to focus. In time, Nash stops taking the medication, and it doesn't take long for him to find himself again staring at the newspaper for codes...and then Parcher also returns. Nash tries to argue that Parcher isn't real, but Parcher convinces him everything is indeed real, including the shed that has now been converted into a codebreaking hub.
Alicia goes outside to get the laundry before a thunderstorm hits. Nash says he'll draw the baby's bath. Alicia hears crackling noises outside and is drawn to the abandoned shed. She opens it and sees the codebreaking papers everywhere once again. She runs back into the house. Nash has placed the baby in the tub and is running the water. Alicia saves the baby just in time before the water encompasses him and starts to scream at Nash. Nash claims that Charles is watching the baby. Alicia goes to call Rosen. Parcher shows up and tells Nash to stop her. Nash doesn't know what to do. Parcher pulls out a gun and is about to kill Alicia, but Nash tackles him. Actually, he winds up tackling Alicia, who's holding the baby. Alicia runs out to the car with the baby. Parcher is now about to kill Nash. Charles shows up too, trying to convince him not to let this happen. Nash is surrounded by visions and memories of Parcher...and Charles...and Alicia...and Princeton...and Rosen...and Marcee...and...Marcee.....Marcee.....
Just before Alicia peels out of the driveway, Nash steps in front of the car. He yells out that she never ages. Nash has known Marcee for years, but Marcee hasn't gotten any older.
Rosen, Nash and Alicia are sitting around the kitchen table discussing things. Nash now realizes and accepts that Charles, Marcee and Parcher are all in his mind. They're not real, the Soviet threat and all this codebreaking isn't real. Rosen asks Nash if he sees any of them here now. Nash does. Marcee is sitting on the floor playing jacks and reading a book. Rosen recommends that Nash undergo more therapy and stronger medication, but Nash refuses. He sees this as nothing more than a problem that he must find the solution to. Rosen says this isn't math. He can't use his mind to solve the problem because his mind IS the problem. Ultimately, Rosen tells Alicia that if Nash doesn't want to voluntarily commit himself, she can choose to sign commitment papers. She does not, opting to support him as he tries to live a normal life in spite of the hallucinations.
2 months later, Nash decides to return to Princeton. He meets with his old rival Hansen, who is now the head of the mathematics department there. Nash congratulates Hansen on reaching this level, saying that it looks like he (Hansen) won after all. Hansen immediately erases all their past animosity, saying no one won. He'd heard about Nash's plight and is thrilled to see him here now. Then Charles barges in, telling Nash he needs to get it through Hansen's head that he (Nash) is a genius, and blah blah blah. Nash slams a rolled-up newspaper onto the desk to quiet Charles. Nash says Alicia thinks it would be good for him to work at Princeton again and be around others. Hansen says absolutely. Nash decides to work out of the library. It doesn't take long, though, for Nash to be causing a scene outside, as he's having an argument with Parcher. Of course, everyone that's witnessing this is seeing Nash argue with himself. Hansen runs out and calms Nash down. That night, Nash tells his wife that maybe Rosen's right, but Alicia boosts him, saying just to try again tomorrow. That next day, upon seeing Charles and Marcee at Princeton, Nash tells them both he cannot and will not talk to them anymore. Nash then audits a class before returning to the library to continue his work.
Years pass. Nash still sees the hallucinations, but he ignores them now without issue. One day, a student comes up to Nash and gushes over his work. They converse and Nash checks out a theorum of the student's. This leads to more students joining. Hansen and Alicia witness Nash holding court in the library like the veteran scholar he now is. Hansen talks to the Princeton mathematics board and is able to get Nash to return to teaching, which he enjoys now. In 1994, John Nash is awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work. As he and Alicia leave the auditorium following the ceremony, Nash sees Charles, Marcee and Parcher on the side, but pays them no mind.
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Dave Bayer, a mathematics professor at Columbia, was a consultant on the film. He makes a cameo near the end of the film.....There is some inaccuracy as to Nash's family in the film. He and Alicia actually divorced in 1963, but remained friends. Nash lived with Alicia for many years and they rekindled their romance in the mid 1990's, remarrying in 2001. They are still together and living in the Princeton area today.....In addition to Princeton, some scenes were shot at other colleges such as Fairleigh Dickinson University and Manhattan College.....Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly met while making this movie, fell in love and remain married with children to this day.....John Nash is a smoker in the movie. The real-life Nash has never smoked. This may have just been a concession for Crowe, who was (still is?) a smoker.....Crowe and Nash met several times over the course of filming, with Crowe continuously finding new ways to add to the character, such as how Nash moves his hands when speaking.
As I said earlier, when I first saw this film many years ago, I couldn't grasp it. I did so this time, partially on my own but even greater thanks to my wife Erica, who pointed out a lot of details in the film that I didn't catch, and also explains things to me on the psychological level.
* Charles provided emotional support for Nash, only showing up in moments of stress and anxiety.
* Charles never interacts with anyone except Nash or Marcee.
* Parcher provided intellectual support for Nash and gave him a mission when Nash felt his work lacked purpose.
* One of the first scenes with Marcee sees her running through a field of birds. The birds never move, indicating there's no one actually running through the field.
* For most of the film, the people Nash thinks are real never change outfits.
Erica compared the film's structure to that of The Sixth Sense, which also gave clues that you didn't realize you were getting until the "big reveal" at the end. Valid comparison. This is a smart film for sure. Despite the criticisms of certain aspects of Nash's life being omitted or modified in the film, critics dug it. Crowe and Connelly were especially praised for their performances, balancing multiple emotions as needed throughout. When the film finally left theaters after a long run, it had raked in over $170M, and this is not the kind of film that normally brings in those kind of numbers. As for Oscars, A Beautiful Mind scored there too, with 8 nominations and 4 wins. The film was unvictorious in the categories of Lead Actor (Crowe, who had won the prior year for Gladiator), Original Score (James Horner), Makeup (Greg Cannom and Colleen Callaghan) and Film Editing (Mike Hill and Dan Hanley). However, it took home gold for Supporting Actress (Connelly), Adapted Screenplay (Akiva Goldsman), Director (Howard) and Best Picture (Brian Grazer and Howard). In winning Best Picture, it bested Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Moulin Rouge!, and with the exception of LOTR, none of those other nominees are too memorable to me even here just 14 years later. I'd say the right film probably won. Crowe certainly cements his place among the great actors of this generation here too, despite not winning the Oscar this time around (Denzel Washington, Training Day). And who wasn't happy to see Opie win a damn Oscar? Thumbs up (like the Fonz) for A Beautiful Mind.
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