A Beautiful Mind? Or a Beautiful Lie?

Last night Danny and I watched A Beautiful Mind. I had never seen it before so I made him go buy it so we could watch it. I cried the whole time and he laughed the whole because I was crying. Well after the movie I decided to google the real story. I do this because movies make me depressed or scared and I have to see if it really happened or if Hollywood stretched everything. It makes me feel better about myself.

WARNING: This could potentially ruin this movie forever for you. If you want to know what REALLY happened then keep reading. If you want to continue to live in a world of lies then stop here.

Movie: John Nash began seeing people in college, including his best friend Charles.

Fact: Nash never "sees" people. His delusions were strictly auditory. He had no best delusional friend like he did in the movie. By making his best friend a delusion, Hollywood is trying to kind of tear at your heart, don't ya think?

Movie: Nash just randomly had schizophrenia.

Fact: Many believe John Nash's irregularities to be due chiefly to heavy use of psychedelic drugs early in his career. Woody Harrelson has widely advocated this theory throughout his career.

Movie: He had a child with his sweet and loving wife.

Fact: He had a child with a random nurse who he abandoned once he found out she was pregnant.

Movie: His wife was loyal to him throughout his problem

Fact: She divorced him in 1970. Then she came back to him AFTER he won the Nobel Memorial Prize.

Movie: John was loyal to Alicia.

Fact: We already know he fathered a child with a nurse. He also was accused of homosexual experiences at RAND that both he and Alicia denied.

Movie: All of the other professors at Princeton gave him their pens in the pen ceremony. This is also another heart breaker because early in the movie John watches another man receive the pens and he really wants it to happen to him too.

Fact: There is no pen ceremony tradition.

Movie: He gave a beautiful acceptance speech upon receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize where he thanks his wife and says he wouldn't be here without her.

Fact: He did not give any acceptance speech because he was accused of being anti-semitic.

I hope this doesn't completely ruin the movie for you. I just find it interesting how far Hollywood strays from the truth :) Another really interesting movie to do this for is the Haunting in Connecticut!