Mental health is an important aspect of people’s lives that requires immediate attention and careful consideration. However, the topic of mental illnesses has been a taboo to discuss and portray for many years. Today it becomes more and more acceptable to talk about one’s health freely, especially in art. The movie industry has become the platform for self-expression and raising awareness about mental health and battling stereotypes. A Beautiful Mind by Ron Howard managed to portray the schizophrenia diagnosis accurately but not without a shred of Hollywood exaggeration.
A Beautiful Mind is an American drama directed by Ron Howard in 2001. It is based on a real person’s life of an American mathematician, Abel Prize winner, and a Nobel Laureate in Economics John Nash. The story of Nash’s life is narrated from his perspective and portrays his struggle with schizophrenia. The movie begins during Nash’s years at Princeton, where studies mathematics as a graduate student. He intensively studies alone in the hope of great discovery and then makes a breakthrough in game theory. Nash then gets invited to MIT as a professor and to the Pentagon to decipher the enemy’s coded communication. He starts getting classified assignments to find hidden patterns in newspapers and stop the Soviet Union’s evil plot. Nash then meets his student Alicia Larde, falls in love, and marries her. Alicia gets pregnant while Nash flees from secret agents and continues his assignments.
The paranoia gets out of control, and Nash is forced into a psychiatric facility. The secret agents and assignments turn out to be delusional, so Nash goes through therapy and is later released. Alicia continues to support him, but Nash stops taking his medication and relapses. He eventually realizes his hallucinations are not real and chooses to deal with his illness himself without medications. Later in life, Nash wins a Nobel Prize and leaves his hallucinations behind.
Diagnosis
The main character of the movie, John Nash, battles schizophrenia. It is defined as a severe chronic mental disorder that heavily affects the way a person feels, thinks, and behaves (The National Institute of Mental Health, 2020). It leads to being delusional, experience hallucinations, have trouble focusing, and lose touch with reality (The National Institute of Mental Health, 2020). Unfortunately, there is no known cure or cause of the illness. Nash first meets his schizophrenic delusion in the face of his roommate Charles. The room is obviously made for one person, but Nash manages to share it with his roommate. The illness progresses and reaches its paramount when Nash gives a speech as a professor and feels attacked by delusional secret agents who want to capture him. He is brought to a psychiatric hospital where he is treated rather harshly. To cure his condition, Nash is prescribed shock therapy and antipsychotic drugs.
Representation in the Movie
The movie does not provide a totally accurate picture of the mental illness since it is a partly fictional interpretation of John Nash’s life. The schizophrenia appeared in Nash’s early 20’s as it typically does in most people with schizophrenia, but the real John Nash did not have the symptoms until his early 30’s (Arfani, 2018). The movie also exaggerated the degree of delusions, reduced speaking, and cognitive symptoms that the character experienced (Arfani, 2018). However, it still contributes towards changing the stigma around the issue of mental disorders. The movie describes the possible struggles and critical attributes of schizophrenia from the perspective of a mentally ill person to increase awareness and understanding from the general population.
The movie A Beautiful Mind manages to accurately portray the key features of schizophrenia and its effect on a person’s life. The visionary and intricate plot allows the viewers to follow the character’s course of illness to the degree of understanding of the general audience. Even with the questionable scenes such as putting schizophrenia in remission without medicine at the end of the movie, it still manages to build a general understanding of the issue and give an authentic view of mental disorders.
References
Arfani, S. (2018). The schizophrenia in the main character of a beautiful mind movie directed by Ron Howard. Wanastra: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, 10(1), 9-16.
The National Institute of Mental Health. (2020). Schizophrenia. National Institute of Health. Web.