1. Poston 1
Melissa Poston
ENG 101
Professor Bolton
18 February 2013
Limitless: Trouble with your mind
In the film Limitless, Bradley Cooper plays a role as Eddie Morra, a man whose life has
gotten out of hand. He struggles with writing his new idea of a novel, while in the meantime his
girlfriend Lindy dumps him for being out of hand. Eddie ends up running into his ex-brother in-
law, who is a drug dealer; he tells Eddie about a new drug they discovered that will let him
explore his whole entire brain. When Morra began taking the drugs, he began miraculously
gaining knowledge. His ex-brother in-law is murdered by a Russian, who is also after him for the
drugs.He becomes well-known and starts working for a billionaire, Carl Van Loon. While
succeeding in the business, Lindy falls in love with him again, but she didn’t know he was on
drugs. His ex-wife finds him and tells him that he needed to stop taking the drugs becauseitwas
slowly killing him, when Eddie misses a pill, he became really ill. At the end of the movie, he
starts making more pills but without the bad stuff in it. The film demonstrates how people want
to expand their knowledge but also demonstrates how people misuse medication for wrong
reasons. However, I do agree with wanting to increase knowledge, but I also disagree with
changing who you are and killing yourself to do so.
I totally agree with people wanting to become smarter. But can medicine actually
increase your knowledge? The first scene shows how Eddie is lost in his novel and has no clue
what to write. However, once he takes the pill, he will not have that problem anymore.
According to the film, “They say you can only access 20% of your brain, with this you can

2. Poston 2
access all of it.” Even though no one yet has discovered this kind of pill or made this kind of
pill, it could make humans lives easier. If everyone was able to access all of their brain, I think
our country would be better off, speaking for how people would straighten out the mess we are in
and getting us back in order, there would also be a downfall to that. Medication has been around
for a while and has helped so many people for different reasons, like the physically challenged,
the mentally challenged, the emotionally challenged and even for basic sickness. Every person
has some kind of medication to keep them going for periods of time. We all are hoping to
discover new ways to increase our knowledge, so that we can do more. I believe someone
someday will figure out some way to do such a thing.
Despite my agreement on becoming smarter, I have to disagree with taking medicine for
no apparent reason. In the film, Eddie is addicted to this medication, but when he stops taking it,
he gets really ill, also other people die and gets sick after they stop taking it, who has taken the
pills. People every day die from taking medicine that was not prescribed to them. We rely on
medicine to make us feel good and to take us away from the stress that we have, but in the
meanwhile those drugs are killing us slowly without us even knowing. Camilla Haw and Keith
Hawton states, “In psychological autopsy studies, substance (drugs and alcohol) misuse or
dependence has been reported in 19-63% of suicides” (86). For example, I used to have very bad
knee problems, and every day I would come home and take medicine until it started slowly going
away, but the next day I would have this awful headache when I woke up. This goes to show that
we over use medication for no good reasons.
While disagreeing on the misuse on medication, I also disagree with changing who
someone is to make them self-smarter. The film shows that when Lindy and Eddie starts dating
again, Lindy can tell that he is not the same person he used to be. Also when the pills wore off,

3. Poston 3
he had no clue what he was doing and where he had been. A lot of people, who use drugs, don’t
have a straight mind of what they’re doing or what they have done. After taking drugs for long
periods of time, it changes who that person really is. And even when a person stops taking
medication and drugs they are not always going to be the same. Although in the film, we do see
that medication can have some good outcomes but also have some bad outcomes.
After all, to me, I think Limitless isn’t worth watching because it makes no sense for
people trying to kill their selves to get smarter over a period of time. Even though it gives
viewers several things to think about, like would someone be willing to change themself or
would someone be willing to take the chance to see how the medication works. While I disagree
with changing and killing yourself, I agree with wanting to expand the human mind.

4. Poston 4
Works Cited
Haw, Camillia; Hawton, Keith. “Problem drug use, drug misuse and deliberate self-harm”
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. Vol.46. (2011): 85-93.
Academic Search Premier
Limitless. Dir. Neil Burger. Perf. Abbie Cornish, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro.
A ROGUE. 2010. Film.