Smelling Shoes

  A Beautiful Mind

When I was seven years old I thought I was an ostrich. I would run around the house like I was being chased by a bear (because apparently bears ARE the main predator of ostriches) and then I'd duck my head under the couch pillows to hide. It was fun and I often regret not doing that any more. However, even when I was seven I still knew that it was just a game. There were no bears in my house, I was not an ostrich, and hiding my head in the couch would not protect me from even a spitball. more

Apparently, John Forbes Nash, Jr. (Russell Crowe) never figured this out. In director Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" we see the times and life of Nash, a brilliant mathematician -- a genius, in fact -- who also is schizophrenic. Now, don't get me wrong, but I thought schizophrenia was a mind-disorder where one experiences multiple personalities. One minute they'd be a brilliant math scholar, the next they'd be a little girl from Sudan, and the next an ostrich in my living room. In this film, Nash simply has fantasies. He is always himself, he just imagines that his life is greater than it is, with a much higher purpose. And he sees people that aren't there.

For crying out loud, I do that and I ain't no genius!

In the late 1940s, John Nash creates his "original idea," for which he has been searching for his entire life. He came up with "Governing Dynamics," which thank God the film never tried to explain what that actually was. We simply go along with the fact that, yes, Nash is a genius, he came up with some brilliant mathematical "thing," and won an award. From there he gets a better job at Wheeler Defense Labs at M.I.T. He does consulting and works on special projects for the Pentagon, under the watch of government agent William Parcher (Ed Harris).

He also has to teach. Mind you, Robot from "Lost In Space" had better people skills than John Nash....Hell, Dr. Smith had more! So, when he begins teaching, the students aren't exactly drawn to him. However, one student, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly), is not only the hottest girl in the class, but is also attracted to Nash, despite the bowl-cut hairdo he has the entire film, and fights through his tactless manners to begin dating him. Hmm, I wonder what grade she got?

In the end, we're supposed to leave the theater thinking that no matter how screwed up in the head someone is, their mind is a beautiful thing and that love can conquer anything. Now, I did enjoy this film, but I left the theater and thought that every person I saw while driving home was either not real at all, or that they were involved in a conspiracy plot to kill me. So, instead of "standing up and cheering" like a different reviewer said of this film, I drove home, went inside, buried my head under the couch pillows, and had a fantasy about Jennifer Connelly. It was fun!