A Beautiful Mind

A film adapted from the life of a mathematician. Nash arrives at Princeton in 1947. He gets on with nobody, does not attend classes, and refuses to publish anything until he has an original idea. His room-mate Charles is the only person who tries to get him out of the room. Nash finally finds the idea and an academic career begins. He teaches, and he marries. Then a government official appears. Nash is given secret work: finding codes hidden in magazines and newspapers. From there the film proceeds like a thriller. Being followed, envelopes left in places, journeys at night, and a growing sense of danger. Halfway through, the rule of the narrative changes and some of what we have seen becomes void. What the narrative is interested in is not illness but living alongside it: Nash does not recover; he learns that what he sees is not real and learns to live with it, and the film gives that as a habit rather than as a scene of triumph. The Alicia line is the film's second subject, and most of the decisions about treatment are hers. The most argued-over aspect of the production is not what it shows but what it does not. Parts of the real Nash's life were left out, and that was criticised on release. The source is a biography by Sylvia Nasar. The film won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay. Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany and Christopher Plummer are in the cast. Ron Howard directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants a life story told in the classical manner. Who it is not for: anyone looking for fidelity; the film noticeably rearranges both the chronology and the man.