John Nash arrives at Princeton University as a new graduate student.
He is a recipient of
the prestigious Carnegie Prize for mathematics. Though he was promised a single room, his
roommate Charles, a literature student, greets him as he moves in and soon becomes his best
friend. Nash also meets a group of other promising math and science graduate students, Martin
Hansen, Sol, Ainsley, and Bender, with whom he strikes up an awkward friendship. Nash is
seeking a truly original idea for his thesis paper, and he is under increasing pressure to develop
his thesis so he can begin work. A particularly harsh rejection from a woman at the bar is what
ultimately inspires his fruitful work in the concept of governing dynamics, a theory in
mathematical economics. After the conclusion of Nash's studies as a student at Princeton, he
accepts a prestigious appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along
with his friends Sol and Bender.
Five years later while teaching a class on Calculus at MIT, he places a particularly
interesting problem on the chalkboard that he dares his students to solve. When his student Alicia
Larde comes to his office to discuss the problem, the two fall in love and eventually marry. On a
return visit to Princeton, Nash runs into his former roommate Charles and meets Charles' young
niece Marcee, whom he adores. He also encounters a mysterious Department of Defense agent,
William Parcher. Nash is invited to a secret United States Department of Defense facility in the
Pentagon to crack a complex encryption of an enemy telecommunication. Nash is able to
decipher the code mentally to the astonishment of other codebreakers. Parcher observes Nash's
performance from above, while partially concealed behind a screen. Parcher gives Nash a new
assignment, to look for patterns in magazines and newspapers, ostensibly to thwart a Soviet plot.
He must write a report of his findings and place them in a specified mailbox. After being chased
by the Russians and an exchange of gunfire, Nash becomes increasingly paranoid and begins to
behave erratically. After observing this erratic behavior, Alicia informs a psychiatric hospital.
Later, while delivering a guest lecture at Harvard University, Nash realizes that he is being
watched by a hostile group of people. Although he attempts to flee, he is forcibly sedated and
sent to a psychiatric facility. Nash's internment seemingly confirms his belief that the Soviets
were trying to extract information from him. He views the officials of the psychiatric facility as
Soviet kidnappers.
Alicia, desperate to help her husband, visits the mailbox and retrieves all of the never-
opened, "top secret" documents that Nash had delivered there. When confronted with this
evidence, Nash is finally convinced that he has been hallucinating. The Department of Defense
agent William Parcher and Nash's secret assignment to decode Soviet messages was in fact all a
delusions. Even more surprisingly, Nash's friend Charles and his niece Marcee are also only
products of Nash's mind. After a painful series of insulin shock therapy sessions, Nash is
released on the condition that he agrees to take antipsychotic medication. However, the drugs
create negative side-effects that affect his relationship with his wife and, most dramatically, his
intellectual capacity. Frustrated, Nash secretly stops taking his medication and hoards his pills,
triggering a relapse of his psychosis.
While bathing his infant son, Nash becomes distracted and wanders off. Alicia is hanging
laundry in the backyard and observes that the back gate is open. She discovers that Nash has
turned an abandoned shed in a nearby grove of trees into an office for his work for Parcher.
Upon realizing what has happened, Alicia runs into the house to confront Nash and barely saves
their child from drowning in the bathtub. When she confronts him, Nash claims that his friend
Charles was watching their son. Alicia runs to the phone to call the psychiatric hospital for
emergency assistance. Parcher urges Nash to kill his wife, but Nash angrily refuses to do such a
thing. After arguing with Parcher, Nash accidentally knocks Alicia to the ground. Afterwards,
Alicia flees the house in fear with their child, but Nash steps in front of her car to prevent her
from leaving. After a moment, Nash realizes that Marcee is a figment of his hallucinations
because she has remained the same age since the day he met her. He tells Alicia, "She never gets
old." Only then does he accept that all three people are, in fact, part of his hallucinations. (It is
important to note that in real life, Nash suffered from auditory hallucinations and possible
delusions, instead of visual hallucinations). Caught between the intellectual paralysis of the
antipsychotic drugs and his delusions, Nash and Alicia decide to try to live with his abnormal
condition. Nash consciously says goodbye to the three of them forever in his attempts to ignore
his hallucinations and not feed his demons. However, he thanks Charles for being his best friend
over the years, and says a tearful goodbye to Marcee, stroking her hair and calling her "baby
girl," telling them both he wouldn't speak to them anymore. Nash grows older and approaches his
old friend and intellectual rival Martin Hansen, now head of the Princeton mathematics
department, who grants him permission to work out of the library and audit classes, though the
university will not provide him with his own office. Though Nash still suffers from
hallucinations and mentions taking newer medications, he is ultimately able to live with and
largely ignore his psychotic episodes. He takes his situation in stride and humorously checks to
ensure that any new acquaintances are in fact real people, not hallucinations. Nash eventually
earns the privilege of teaching again. He is honored by his fellow professors for his achievement
in mathematics, and goes on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his revolutionary
work on game theory. Nash and Alicia are about to leave the auditorium in Stockholm, when
John sees Charles, Marcee and Parcher standing and smiling. Alicia asks John, "What's wrong?"
John replies, "Nothing." With that, they both leave the auditorium.
