A Beautiful Mind Parent Guide

DIRECTOR RON HOWARD delves into the delusional world of paranoid schizophrenia in A Beautiful Mind. Based on the tortured life of mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., Howard champions the man who teeters on greatness, falls victim to a mental illness and fights back to accept the Nobel Prize in 1994.

In 1947, Nash (Russell Crowe) enters the halls of Princeton as a graduate student with the top thinkers of his time. Obsessed with finding an original thought, he shuns classes and schoolmates to scribble scientific notes on the windowpanes of his boarding room and the library. His extraordinary reasoning abilities eventually lead him to the discovery of a revolutionary economic theory, but his deficient social graces and odd behaviors make him an outcast with most of his peers. Befriended by his boisterous roommate, Charles (Paul Bettany), the gifted mathematician goes on to earn a doctorate and take up teaching at MIT. After the Pentagon uses his code-breaking skills to decipher incoming enemy messages, a furtive CIA agent, William Parcher (Ed Harris), recruits Nash for a top-secret military operation.

In the meantime, the studious bachelor is smitten by the romantic advances of one of his students who coaxes the tentative teacher into the heady and illogical world of love. But shortly after marrying Alicia (Jennifer Connelly), the lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur.

While the unsettling depictions of early medical treatments, domestic disruptions caused by his disease, a scene of heavy gunfire, and inclusion of moderate language make this remarkable story better suited for families with older teens, the film unfolds a world where nothing is sure. Strong performances by Crowe, Connelly and Harris give credit to the real life sufferers who function in a society where mental illness is often eschewed.

Battling his delusions and fears with snippets of humor and a penchant for logic, Nash struggles to bring reason and value to a life haunted by unseen demons and in time learns to trust in the exponential and intuitive power of love.

About author

Kerry Bennett

Kerry Bennett is interested in media from both a journalist and parent perspective. Along with authoring articles for several family-oriented publications, she has written for Parent Previews for over 15 years. As a parent herself, she believes parents play a powerful role in teaching media literacy in their homes.