A Beautiful Mind is the story of a gifted mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. The movie is an astute portrayal of the Mathematician’s genius, his relation with his wife, his struggle with schizophrenia and the triumph of love and logic over the virtual fears set by his own mind.
Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly
Adapted from the book by Sylvia Nasar by Akiva Goldsman
Plot: In 1947 John Nash arrives at Princeton University with an aspiration to accomplish some original research in the field of mathematics. After a ingenious discovery at the University he is asked to do cryptographic work for the NSA and eventually looses stability of his mind. Diagnosed with schizophrenia he constantly sees non-existent people and has a confused perspective of the world around him. But with ample support from his loving wife he recovers out of the depleted state and goes on to teach at Princeton. The movie ends with his genius being recognized and he is awarded the Noble prize.
Review: ’’The genius is very rarely understood’’. The movie finds its merit in the fact that, Ron Howard adroitly presents the contrast of what intelligence does to a man. In the first half an hour we see the brilliance of Nash with his idiosyncrasies and hold the image of intellectual achievement with reverence. The next hour or so we get to see how the same genius traps and tortures the man with the unforgiving diseases called schizophrenia. The disgust and the complete annoyance on the part of the protagonist due to his inability to differentiate between real and imaginary is aptly captured on screen. The director gives us a very aggrieving view of the disease from the point of view of the sufferer.
Russell Crowe has lived his character. He deserved an Oscar in this movie much more than in Gladiator. His real greatness comes in the depiction of the slightly peculiar behavior in the beginning and that of a hallucinating eccentric in the later half...Jennifer Connelly as his wife Alicia supports him well and displays a very emotional and real image in contrast to her husband’s inscrutable personality.
I have seen this movie three times and loved it each time. Trauma of great men is often misunderstood and this movie attempts to change that. And while we are on the life of John Nash we should also look into the theory that got him his Noble Prize.
Important Read this If You like a bit of Math
Nash Equilibrium: If there is a set of strategies for a game with the property that no player can benefit by changing his strategy while the other players keep their strategies unchanged, then that set of strategies and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.
Very confusing... Ok I will explain one aspect of the equilibrium with two players though it can be extended to multiple players. Suppose A and B, sell a product (of same specifications and quality) and consider they are the only players.
Suppose both sell the product for 100 bucks. And their profit is 1500 bucks each in an unbiased market. Now suppose B decides to sell it for 95 bucks. Obviously he will get more customers and his profit will soar but not much due to his reduced selling price. But A will be at heavy loss.We will suppose the profits to be 600 for A and 2200 for B. Naturally A will be inclined to reduce price and will do so. Suppose both start selling at 95 bucks. They both will make profit but will be less than 1500 bucks. Obviously the prices can’t go down beyond the limit of cost price. So equilibrium would be reached and anybody who tries to raise price would suffer heavy losses because of loss in sales and eventually fall back to the lower equal price.
This equilibrium is called Nash equilibrium. In the above example it may seem very simple but when multiple players with multiple variables and interests come to play the theory makes a great impact. In fact he proposed the theory in which multiple players look for mutual benefit.
Enough Maths for this Review. Comments are welcome.
Nash: If we all go for the blonde and block each other, not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends, but they will all give us the cold shoulder because no on likes to be second choice. But what if none of us goes for the blonde? We won’t get in each other’s way and we won’t insult the other girls. It’s the only way to win. It’s the only way we all get laid.