HSP3U
Name: _____________________________________
MOVIE: A BEAUTIFUL MIND
“FIND A TRULY ORIGINAL IDEA. THAT IS THE ONLY WAY I CAN EVER DISTINGUISH MYSELF.
IT IS THE ONLY WAY THAT I WILL EVERY MATTER.”
JOHN NASH
* Answer the following questions on a lined piece of paper. Your answers will be
collected and a mark will be assigned. See rubric!
1. What was your initial or immediate reaction to the film? Why do you think you
reacted that way? What was it in the film that prompted that reaction?
2. What are your impressions of Nash in the opening third of the film while he's attending graduate school at
Princeton?
3. Nash was told by his second-grade teacher that he had been given two helpings of brain but only one
helping of heart- what did that mean?
4. How would you describe the role of the psychiatrist/psychologist in healing?
5. What scenes in the film were key to the development of John’s character and why?
6. The title of the film comes from the Nobel Prize speech with which the film essentially ends. What does it
mean?
7. What can be learned from this film about psychiatric disease? What can we learn particularly from the
character of Alicia Nash?
8. What role does friendship play in this movie? How many different kinds of friendship are portrayed?
Which is the most important to you and why?
9. What insight does the film give into the way people view schizophrenia and reality?
10. Compare the real-life story of John Nash to the events revealed in the film. Perhaps focus on; characteristics
of the disease, his relationship with his wife, his Nobel prize speech and further treatment of the disease.
11. What was your overall impression of the film and its portrayal of mental illness?