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A Beautiful Mind
His wife eventually discovers the garage and
rushes back to the house only to find the baby almost drowning in the bathtub.
John tells her that “Charles is watching him”. (Charles being the imaginary best
friend.) The demons tell John to try to stop his wife when she goes to call the
doctor and he doesn’t hurt her but scares her really bad. It is at this point that
John is able to say that he doesn’t want to take the medication and she supports
him in trying to do this.
This is where the going gets tough for John. He can think again and goes
back to school but the delusions go with him. At first, he tries to ignore them but
they keep trying to talk to him until finally he has to say goodbye.
The rest of the movie is about how he deals with all of this while going on to
win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Reaction
A Beautiful Mind is a movie with a purpose. Although entertainment is
certainly the primary goal, it also serves as an educational tool for the general
public. Most people think that schizophrenia means that a person has multiple
personalities, which is not true at all. The major symptom of schizophrenia is that
the person hears voices, voices that seem very, very real to them. They may also
experience hallucinations, like John. I think that the movie makes the imaginary
parts seem so real so that people will understand how real it seems to the
person experiencing it. I think this movie does a good job of portraying the
hardships of living with a major mental illness. It helps you to understand that
the person with the illness is not violent. If you understand that the person is
hearing voices that seem very real to them, it really isn’t all that crazy that they
are answering them. John Nash must have been an extraordinary person.
Brilliant, but also loving and kind, all while fighting against a disabling mental
illness.