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Visitors Review

daniel Carbajo López 2012-05-23 03:57:29

Good acting, but not catching

Cat is an unstable (maybe mental) woman. She has taken care of herfather Robert, a genius in maths, but, that is know old and has losthis mind. When he dies, she will have to deal with Hal, his mostpromising student and with Claire, her sister, that thinks that Cat ismad and wants to take her to a sanatorium. Cat will have to deal withher fears and her traumas (created by living with a mad genius duringfive years), being in the shaped part of a knife, between genius andmadness, will she fall to one of the parts? The acting is surprisinglygood, most of the time you can watch to nothing more than first termshots. Paltrow give us one of her best acting and the other ones areable to show us how good actors are. Despite this, the movie has theproblem that none of the characters are charismatic. The movie passesby without any interest and it provokes that a good acting is wasted ina unfortunately uninteresting plot. However, it is not the fact thatthe movie is unbelievable, though. It approaches to mental illness in avery correct and respectful way, but it lacks something catching.Probably the fact that is an adaptation from theatre makes it moredifficult to watch to. With these detail about the story, this lack ofcharisma or somewhat(maybe is too slow, I don't know but I did not getcaught by the movie), the movie becomes just, correct; good if you wantto see good acting, but boring as a result. It could have been donebetter, but it is not bad anyway.

elmaira 2012-05-22 18:34:14

beautiful movie

This is a very good movie, the performances were very good, thecharacters were real. In the beginning I was reserved since I thoughtthat this is just another movie about a crazy mathematician but themovie convinced me. Especially in the second half I was amazed with myeyes wide open; it's very hard for a movie to keep my interest likethis.Also very inspirational if you are a mathematician...and no matterwhich field you are in. Truly describes the feeling one gets when inthe procedure of solving an interesting problem. With all the doubtsabout yourself, the excitement, the state of not working, the hardwork, the failure and the victory, if any. Beautiful!

2012-05-22 11:20:47

powerful performance

by the dialogue, you can tell this story began as a very good play. theissue with making a movie from a very good play is that you have to addsomething impossible to do on stage. i think paltrow does an excellentjob. i'm not a big gwyn fan, but the way she portrayed her deep sadnessthroughout the movie, in closeups you wouldn't see from the balconysection of a theater - the fragility of her grasp on reality, thetrauma of watching her father deteriorate before her eyes... this issomething beyond "a beautiful mind," which centered more on thehallucinations and surreality of a victim of mental disease. "proof,"instead, focuses on the father-daughter relationship and how, evenafter caring for his deteriorated mind for years, a daughter doesn'tthink twice about seeking her father's approval - as if he could becoherent for the moment she needed him to be. i thought that was themost poignant part of the movie. there's not a lot to the story of themovie, but the depth in the performances - paltrow, hopkins and hopedavis - is worth the ticket. its nice to actually see a very good movieonce in a while.

galfriday 2012-05-21 18:43:57

They blew it.

Reasons why proof doesn't work;1. Gwenneth Paltrow, who is no longer 27, is simply not believable as amath genius nor as Anthony Hopkins daughter.2. Jake Gylenhaal, a terrific actor, is simply not believable as a mathgenius.3. Hope Davis spent too much time on her hair, and is not believable asAnthony Hopkins daughter.4. Anthony Hopkins is wasted. Every scene he's in comes to life, andapparently the play was more father/daughter, but it seems the peoplemaking the movie wanted to 'beef up the romance'.5. Romance involving depressive mopey beauties spouting math equationsrarely work.6. The movie was boring.

Calibanhagseed 2012-05-17 11:04:33

The reason I hate math even more.

When I rented this flick - despite my prudent dislike - I thought I wasgoing to be served a touchy-feely picture sporting the message thatmath is not redeeming answer to life but love is, or such Hippy New Ageexistential hogwash. (Though I prefer that, violent nihilisticself-destruction is the only salvation, as preached by Fight Club) Ineed bland cotton candy sentiments to balance my diet of bittermisanthropy.Instead I was dished a geriatric smug rendition of "The Ant and theGrasshopper" fable. I liked the main-character. The fact that she gotup as early as noon, complained about everything and dismissed andalienated people around her with sophomoric clever sophism's andincivility made her a character I could really relate too. In the endthough, trough the nagging of her aged father and the boringintervention techniques from her equally boring boyfriend she is swayedto abandon her hobo-hedonistic lifestyle and yielded to thewhite-collar work-ethics all scientists obey (except she isn'tmotivated by monomaniacal self-important worship of math and greed ofcourse)Though plaid-shirt wearing math-monkeys feel the sand of humanignorance towards their exalted science grinding in the neat littleclock-works of their pedestrian brains, so too my pop-culture filledremnant of gray matter is vexed by the blatant disrespect for humanreality , or at least my reality; I never met an interestingmathematician. So I conclude that the lovable socially apt Greendaypet-chimps who know pi to a thousand places are Hollywood creations.(What's next an overrated art-house actor playing a vagrant in aFantasy world who is the king descending from an ancient bloodline,that fought the Tin Woodsman on steroids in some battle thousands ofyears ago?)I say; I you want a movie about social and spiritual redemption gowatch "The Fisherking" by Terry Gilliam, he has something math-monkeysdon't have - Imagination.

Barbrida 2012-05-16 18:39:02

An excellent movie exploring genius, insanity and discrimination

After seeing the play, I couldn't wait for this movie to come out. Iwasn't disappointed. It was an excellent portrayal of the challengesfaced by families dealing with mental illness, in this caseschizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a disorder of the brain that is sodifficult both for the person suffering and the family. When compoundedwith genius there is another layer of disbelief and confusion. Thismovie tackles these questions as well as the underlying theme of femalegenius. Considering that this debate continues to make headlines (thatmales are innately better at math and science) I would recommend thismovie. The acting was excellent and the characters human andbelievable. In my opinion this movie didn't get the credit it deserved.I preferred it to A Beautiful Mind.

2012-05-15 02:50:14

Great performances make a timeless movie

By reading some of the previous reviews, I get the feeling that some people may have been disappointed by the fact that the plot of the movie is somewhat simple. This is not an adventure movie; it is a character study, a journey into genius and madness, the complexity of family ties, and of relationships growing from intellectual and sentimental attraction. Some call it a thriller and I agree with that. It is a thriller to people who like sensible movies.The performances of lead and supporting cast members are flawless, believable and touching. Gwyneth Paltrow delivers a performance that I find much more admirable and challenging than the one in "Shakespeare in Love", and if I had to choose, I'd give her the Oscar for this one which I found much more interesting by all means. Jake Gyllenhaal makes an adorable Hal (even when you wonder about his motives); his confident performance rings absolutely true (he must be every geek's hero now!). Sir Hopkins is his own, usual perfect self. Hope Davis' character is truly irritating, so I guess she does a great job.Interestingly, "Proof" does not deliver one single breathtaking moment to replay over and over. It is not "memorable" that way. It is the mood of the whole movie that sticks with you. Dialogues can be quite funny at times (the "jojoba" lines are funny and the "dating the doctoral advisor's daughter", very sweet), and I actually found the "theatrical" sound of them pleasant and interesting. The editing work is excellent; the flashbacks are carefully spread out through the movie to help build-up and understand the complexity of the "present". If anybody finds the succession of past and present scenes confusing, one must consider that maybe there is a relevance to that. The main character is confused and has lived in confusion for several years, to a point where she is afraid to be "like her father." And she is not thinking about his genius when she says that...This movie is delicate and sensitive; it will still be as true and interesting as it is now in ten or fifteen years from now. It has timeless qualities.

rosscinema 2012-05-14 22:29:24

Auburn's play brought to life with Paltrow's performance

Even the most successful plays can be difficult to translate onto thebig screen but given the right director and a solid cast it cancertainly end up with positive results. This latest attempt (while noawe inspiring achievement) still leans towards the positive andbenefits from a very good performance by Gwyneth Paltrow who when giventhe right material is as good an actress as any other working today.Story is about Catherine (Paltrow) who's father Robert (AnthonyHopkins) was a brilliant mathematician at the University of Chicago buthas died after suffering from mental illness. Catherine is also amathematician and goes to school at Northwestern but she took time offto care for her father during the last few years of his life.*****SPOILER ALERT***** Robert has left over 100 notebooks filled withhis scribblings and a young math student named Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal)spends his time pouring over them one by one (with Catherine'spermission) with the hope of finding something important. Catherine'scontrolling sister Claire (Hope Davis) comes in from New York for thefuneral but she also wants her sister to come back to the East Coastwith her because of the fear that their father's illness is hereditary.While Catherine and Claire argue about what should be done Hal suddenlyemerges with one of Robert's notebooks and tells them that it containsa mathematical proof that will change the way scholars think but thereal surprise comes when Catherine announces that the proof came fromher and not her father!This is directed by John Madden who worked with Paltrow before in"Shakespeare in Love" and with this effort I came away thinking thatthese two should team up again because Madden has shown the ability tobring out her best performances. This is adapted from the PulitzerPrize-winning play by David Auburn and Paltrow reprises her role asCatherine from the London stage and I think viewers will get a goodsense that she knows the inner workings of her character because herperformance is the best thing about this film. The story wisely doesn'tdwell on what exactly the proof is because I don't know anyone whoreally cared about what they were talking about in terms of mathematicsbecause the core of the story is Catherine and whether or not she'ssuffering from mental illness like her father. Paltrow's performance isvital to the film because without it's strength this could have been anincredibly dull viewing experience but (for the most part) it does workand for me it's the only reason to give this a recommendation. The filmis stagy and scenes are set up for characters to have long vocalconfrontations with each other but at the root of the story isCatherine's frustration and paranoia and Paltrow once againdemonstrates that she's an underrated actress.

long-ford 2012-05-13 01:45:03

Well acted film on mathematics makes fascinating viewing

This is a solidly acted film clearly based on a play. Gwyneth Paltrowdoes a good job as the daughter of a math genius who suspects she maybe prone to the same madness that has affected her father. AnthonyHopkins and Jake Gyllenhaal are both effective in supporting rolesthough the film is clearly Paltrow's. Hope Davis leaves an impressionas the older sister. The film is well researched and gives us an ideaof how difficult yet fascinating Mathematics is as a career. The endingis a shade too pat as it attempts to wrap everything up. Still worthwatching.Overall 7/10

2012-05-12 06:06:58

good performances - weak story line

The acting is superb - all four characters. The problem is that the story is based on an unbelievable premise and mental illness - even (or especially) when well portrayed - is just not very interesting. This is a kind of high-brow soap opera.Anyone who knows the University of Chicago will enjoy the local color. It is accurate down to the funeral in Rockefeller Chapel, the Midway, and even the location of the math department in Eckert Hall.

kpw-5 2012-05-11 16:02:58

A powerfully engaging and moving film, marred by a dull intrusive score, and the intrusion of two puzzling directorial lapses.

This film orbits around the epicenter of a gravitationally powerfulGwyneth Paltrow, a fine actor, who – like Laurence Olivier on the stage– pulls off the near miraculous achievement of making us care andbelieve, and yet all the while we are aware that there is a brilliantactor at work.Jake Guyllenhaal is different: it is almost as though director JohnMadden had found him in a math lecture room at Northwestern while hewas doing location research: a real young prof who would fit the storyperfectly just by being himself: one does not have the sense ofwatching an actor at work.The issues entailed – professional integrity and filial love – arehandled in a way that makes us feel they are our issues, and we comeaway knowing that we have touched something of value.The music is unnecessary, lumpen, intrusively ugly. When, in the finalscene the two protagonists finally begin the conversation that haseluded them from the beginning, and is the triumphant outcome of theirextraordinarily painful struggles, the camera dollies back and thetitles roll, and in comes that awful music, just when we could use acouple of reassuring minutes, a closure that would stay open so tospeak. We yearn to hear them in this amazing dialog right to the end oftitles and even beyond, into black for a few minutes. There could evenhave been, in black, a kind of verbal climax that wd give us a trueending. But no: smothering, dumb, useless music. I can only hope it wasimposed upon director Madden (a capable guy, Captain Corelli,Shakespeare in Love, several fine episodes of the British police TVseries about Inspector Morse) imposed by the money, I guess, and nothis own choice.But he has to take the blame for allowing a couple of slightlydistracting conventions to show up in this otherwise very clean andinstructing movie, one of those in which you forget about the directorbecause he is seldom being clever (except for the time shifts, which weare not prepared for, and take a little getting used to at first).One of these distractions is the Leaving Doors Open syndrome. Ithappens a lot. Remember Chocolat Where people keep coming in out of thewintry outdoors, and leave the chocolate shop door open behind them?People don't do that in our culture, even in France. Guyllenhaal doesit here, in summer on a porch: opens a screen door, comes out onto theporch, leaves the door open behind him. People don't do that. Well,film directors do, a lot, and it is weird.The second dumb thing is running after cars, in which a beloved isleaving. Paltrow has announced she's leaving, gets in the limo for theairport with her sister, says a definitive Good Byy. Guyllenhaal isdevastated, calls after her. And then runs after the car! Thisintelligent guy. And the director keeps the car slow enough (despitethe fact that it's a limo hurrying to the airport) that the actor canrun for half a block still close to the car. People don't do this. Itis dumb. And we wonder why a fine director would indulge it. Perhaps hetook a day off and let the first AD direct this scene.There. That's my rant. And it is that rantish only because this is afine, fine film that should not have to have suffered from even minorstupidities.Patrick Watson

WasteBot 2012-05-10 21:19:02

Misshapen, Meandering, and No Puzzles

A very well acted film supported by an excellent soundtrack all basedupon a misshapen story with misshapen characters. That's why I gave ita 3. 1 point for a film that's technically well done, 1 point foracting, 1 point for soundtrack. The story, instead of multiplying thosepoints, provides a 0. Zero is not a valid score, so I gave it a 3.It's as if the story came out of the mind of the character AnthonyHopkins played. I.e., a meandering romantic tale only loosely based onmath, invention, and higher education.For math nerds hoping for a math film, it will be a disappointment.Only a few name drops of mathematicians, theorems, and problem-solvingtechniques. At its best, it gives some insight into higher educationthat breaks one cliché: that it's boring. At its worst, it's cliché.Not just cliché, but non-factual cliché based on a reality morph thatsomebody who never attended a college got from walking past collegecampuses and hearing indirectly about parties, and watching films likePi, Animal House, and A Beautiful Mind (all of which you should seeinstead of this).

2012-05-07 05:05:36

Why can't Hollywood portray Mathematics/Mathematician correctly for just once?

I was rather enthusiastic about watching the movie "Proof." With such a title, one would expect that the movie would actually contain, oh I don't know... Proofs of some sort, or that some specific proof would be the center of the story.However, on both accounts, this is not so. I felt this movie amounted to nothing much more then a pile of cliches. I'm suprised Ebert and all the other reviews claim it was well acted -If anything, I think Paltrow in particular overacted her part (in terms of portraying a neurotic/scizo) and wasn't convincing enough as a mathematician. Speaking of which, no one in the film was convincing as a mathematician partly because no actaul matheamtics seems to make it to this movie. Sure they throw out words like "Algebraic Geometry," or "Game Theory" (More an Economics field then Matheamtics anyways) but that is the extent of the "mathematics" in this film. It seems the author could have easily made the film a little more authentic by hiring an actaul facaulty of matheamtics as an advisor to the film. What is funny about what little that is shown is its mostly Analysis (if its anything recognizable at all, a vast majority of the things writ on the board are as far as my friends and I can tell, giberish), whereas suppodly this great awe-inspiring proof (A proof whose structure is actaully never remotely discusssed) that Paltrow's character may have written (and also what her father suppodly worked in) was Algebra/Number Theory. A simple analogy to demonstrate my gripe about this film is it's like if one were to have made a movie about individuals in some other less abstract field, perhaps an engineer or inventor, and the film contained virtually nothing about the subject this[these] indiivdual[s] were known for. It would make the film seem a bit empty (and would defeat the purpose of basing a movie on these people). Of course I admit this movie's main drive is evidently not mathematics (and it's target audience is certanily not mathematicians), its really a romance story. Yet, even given this I must say it was far less enjoyable then past titles with similiar premise (the so-called "romance w. nerds" sub-genre). I can think of two movies that did this type of film far better, that is IQ (Walter Mathau, 1994) and Beautiful Mind (Crow, 2001).In the later, although there was virtually no mathematics as well, they at least "talked" about the subject that John Nash discovered in some brief detail. Also, of course, the acting was more convincing in that case as well.Even other movies based on ficticious genius like "Good Will Hunting" had more convincing main characters (and much more compelling character drama) then Paltrow's mathematician and her toils with the outside world. I think with Paltrow's character, one see's only one facet of her personality (that is the incomprehsensible neurotic side), whereas a film like "Good Will Hunting" we saw the characters behave like actaul people every once in a while (and in "A Beautiful Mind" and "IQ" the characters' personalities actaully changed and grew throughout the span of the film). The result is of course, as I stated above, a cliche (not that most films nowadays arn't devoid of this, but in this case, I believe its it much more evident). In any event,this film was one of the few movies I have purchased and felt it was a waste. In comparative terms, from its set of peers, it probably fits closest to a little known film "Infinity" about Richard Feynman. In fact, that film also mentiond virtually nothing about Feynman's work and stayed almost entirely within the romance story. I'd say "Proof" is much more enjoyable then that film, however its far less enjoyable then "Good Will Hunting" and certanily does not compare with "IQ," "Beautiful Mind," or "October Sky" (that is other similiar films). The movie is a rent, as opposed to a buy, in my opinion.

Bogdan T 2012-05-06 11:06:22

didn't like. didn't understand?

Do not watch the "Proof", unless you like long, boring,pseudo-scientific movies. Or if you, like me, do not "understand" thiskind of movies.Yes, it was boring. Why? Because there was no math, actually. The mostmath-rich moment was when Catherine told her father his "proof" of thetheorem, which was nothing more than some gibberish uttering about coldand the numbers of months, enriched with math-like terms.It was also boring because the story doesn't have any visible suspense.The intertwined past and current moments didn't add anything sensibleto suspense - only vagueness and disputes over what is actually beingproved.As for the emotional part, I didn't feel anything of what the actorswere playing. It all seemed artificial, most frequently - justover-reacting emotionally. It might be that possible madness ofCatherine forced her hyper-behavior, and that it was specially playedlike that; even if so, it could have been done better - so that Iwouldn't have to guess what was it intended to tell me.There was a single moment I liked: thinking of brains as of a house-locked, forgotten, with curtains down. This was somewhat simple, butnevertheless pleasant and vivid metaphor. Again, the problem is that ifthere's only one bright and vivid moment in the movie - then it'sgenerally weak, because good movies either have lots of memorablemoments, or are comprehended as a whole integral piece of art. TheProof is neither, in my opinion.You may like this movie if you feel that watching anything will makeyou happier. But after - don't say I didn't warn you.

TxMike 2012-05-05 20:19:35

Hopkins and Paltrow are superb as father/daughter being escorted into madness.

It certainly isn't necessary to be well-versed in mathematics to enjoythis movie, but it does help, if only to identify with thepersonalities that inhabit this most arcane "science." This story istold in the "present" and via flashbacks, and the editing facilitatesit very nicely. In the present, in Chicago, the mathematician andfather Robert (Anthony Hopkins) has just died, his at-home daughterCatherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) prepares for the arrival from NY of hersomewhat estranged older sister Claire (Hope Davis). The sisters alwaysseem to be at odds, and this is magnified several times when Catherinefinds out that Claire is also planning on selling the family residenceright away, at the same time hoping to convince Catherine to move to NYwith her. See, Robert did his ground-breaking work in his early 20s andshortly thereafter began to go mad, spending the last 40-odd years ofhis life scribbling nonsense in notebooks. Claire is afraid her sisteris following in dad's mental steps.Jake Gyllenhaal is a 20-something mathematics post-graduate Hal whounderstands Robert's contributions, and seems to have come to acceptthat he (and most others) will never have a hope of contributing atthat very high level. But he is both romantically attracted toCatherine, and also realizes she may have inherited Robert's gift forground-breaking mathematics. He wants to help her realize that too. This movie is not about mathematics, it isn't really about Robert. Itis about Catherine, afraid she is becoming mad like her dad, but alsorealizing that she may have talents that she must develop. In a greatsense, the future of our world depends on the occasional genius comingup with striking advances, so what happens if one of them "breaks thechain" and refuses to use their gift? Catherine is torn betweenretreating, giving up, and letting herself go insane without struggle.But is that her path? Maybe she only inherited the genius, and will NOTgo insane. The movie is about her inner struggle to cope with bothpossibilities.May 2009 edit: Saw it again last night, it was as good and fresh aswhen I watched it 3 years ago. Good movie.SPOILERS FOLLOW. In the heat of the sister/sister friction after thefuneral services, and when Catherine is talking to Hal, who had beengoing through the 103 notebooks of gibberish Robert had written,looking for a spark of genius, Catherine gave him a key to an upstairsdesk. In it he found one notebook which contained an elegant "proof" ofa long-standing problem regarding prime numbers. Catherine said shewrote it, but Claire doesn't think she is capable. Hal says thehandwriting looks like Robert's. He has two groups of mathematiciansexamine it and, while they didn't grasp all the transformations, theycould NOT find anything wrong with it. A flashback shows us, theaudience, that Robert could not have written it, indeed it wasCathernie's. On the verge of leaving for NY with her sister, thatflashback in her mind made her go back, and the movie ends with herback on campus, willing to explore her mathematical mind. As Hal says,he can't prove she won't go mad eventually, but he also can't prove shewill. So she might as well work as if she will not!

elshuefan 2012-05-05 03:45:30

Another brilliant Paltrow performance

The more I see Gwyneth's films, the more in awe I am of herversatility. There doesn't seem to be a type of role, or genre of film,in which she is miscast or over her head. "Proof" is anothertour-de-force performance by Ms. Paltrow. Wow! The complexity of hercharacter kept me sitting at the edge of my seat, with my hands claspedunder my chin, literally, for the entire second half of the film.Gwyneth and Anthony Hopkins interacted very well together. JakeGyllenhaal held his own as the math student, a positive complement toGwyneth's increasingly depressed character. Hope Davis did a wonderfuljob as Gwyneth's well-meaning but out-of-touch sister in the film.Drama-lovers unite! This character-driven film is for you. Lots ofemotion, riveting dialogue, and Oscar-caliber performances. Go see it!

Henry Fields 2012-05-02 16:04:54

Confusing but nice...

Gwyneth Paltrow plays the daughter of a so brilliant mathematician thatlost his reason, and she's afraid sh'es gonna go crazy as well as hisfather did."Proof" has the structure of a thriller, and it's a trip into the worldof geniuses, their competitiveness, their sickly self-discipline...There are some similarities between this film and "A Beautiful Mind".It's a good movie, with some flash-back that are rather confusing(sometimes you don't really know if what you're watching are sequencesfrom the past or from the present). The actors are just nice,especially Miss Paltrow, for this is a character much more suitable forher than the one from "Sky Captain" (for example).

2012-05-02 07:29:50

Great acting

Gwyneth Paltrow is great in Proof. She appears depressed, creative, brilliant, vulnerable, etc. as the genius-level daughter of a brilliant father. This is the best work I've ever seen her do. Better than Shakespeare in Love, the film that won her an Oscar. This role seems like it would be far harder to pull off than most, but Ms. Paltrow's performance is fluid, flawless, committed, and carries a subtle sense of humor throughout. Realistic and inspirational story.

jotix100 2012-04-26 14:34:55

Advanced Math

"Proof", the excellent play by David Auburn, was one of the best thingsin the New York stage in recent memory. Part of the attraction was theintelligent subject matter, math science, and how it connected the fourcharacters one got to meet. The casting was an ideal one, Mary LouiseParker, Larry Briggman, Johanna Day and Ben Shenkman, playingCahterine, Robert, Claire and Hal, respectively.Mr. Auburn and Rebecca Miller, a movie director, herself, took the taskof adapting "Proof" for the screen. The result, directed by JohnMadden, opens the play in cinematic terms, no small undertaking inpresenting the movie to a wider audience who might not be interested inscience, and much less in the advanced math that plays an importantrole in the proceedings.If you haven't seen the film, please stop reading here.Catherine, the 27 year old, at the center of the film, is a woman whohas stayed behind to take care of her aging father, a man much esteemedin academic circles, who is suffering from, perhaps, a neurologicalillness that is killing him slowly. Catherine has, in a way, sacrificedher life in order to see that Robert spends his last days at homeinstead of at an institution.The death of the father brings Claire home. This woman, who lives inNew York, wants to get rid of everything connected with her father. Sheeven has made plans for Catherine to move from Chicago to be near eachother in New York, where things are much better. To complicate things,Harold, the nerdy math student, finds a hidden notebook that mightcontain a discovery that will revolutionize math. The only problem isthe proof might not have been the dead man's own creation."Proof" works as a film because of Mr. Madden's direction. We are keptinvolved in what is going on because we have been won by Catherine, thewounded woman trying to live her life without having to tend to a sickman. Catherine love for math, in a way, makes her realize her place isin the same institution where her father made mathematical discoveriesas she will be following his steps.Gwyneth Paltrow makes an excellent Catherine, a role she had played onthe London stage. Ms. Paltrow is a welcome presence in the moviebecause of the intelligence she projects when working with a gooddirector like John Madden. In fact, it has been a while since we sawthis actress in a film.Hope Davis, another excellent actress, plays Claire, the materialisticsister who has arrived and who wants to transform the frumpy Catherineand mold her to her own taste. Ms. Davis has accustomed us to expect avaluable contribution to any film in which she plays. As Claire, sheclearly understand who this character she is portraying really is.Anthony Hopkins has only a few good moments on the screen. JakeGyllenhaal's character Harold is not as effective as Ben Shenkman's wason the stage. In fact, Mr. Gyllenhaal, with his dark good looks, seemsto be someone who would not be interested in math at all."Proof" is an immensely rewarding film thanks to what John Madden'svision.

2012-04-25 19:09:47

well acted adaptation

***1/2Superb acting is the chief selling point of "Proof," the generally interesting film version of the David Auburn play, adapted by Auburn and Rebecca Miller and directed by John ("Shakespeare in Love") Madden. Anthony Hopkins plays an aging math genius whose career was cut tragically short when he fell victim to some form of mental illness in his late 20's. In the years since, he has been little more than a shell of his former self, reduced to shuffling around the house in his bathrobe while filling up endless notebooks - originally intended for brilliant mathematical proofs and formulas - with incoherent messages and doodling. Gwyneth Paltrow, in one of her most demanding roles, portrays Catherine, his equally bright younger daughter, who is firmly convinced that she is succumbing to the same mental illness that has claimed her father. Hope Davis is her older sister, Claire, who left their Chicago home to make a new life for herself in New York, but who, now, on the death of their father, has returned with the express purpose of bringing Catherine back home with her in order to "care" for her. The fourth main character is Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a young math professor who admires the work of the once-great Robert and who, as both a friend and potential romantic interest, really doesn't believe that Catherine is losing her mind at all.In thematic terms, "Proof" makes us ponder where exactly that fine line is that separates sanity from insanity and how we can ever really know if and when we are crossing over it. As embodied by Paltrow, Catherine becomes a fascinatingly complex character, one whom we seem to be looking at as through a shattered mirror or fractured lens, never quite sure whether each image at any given moment is a true reflection of who she is or a mere illusion. Paltrow slides in and out of Catherine's many moods with such precision and conviction that she makes us aware of the scary and literally maddening nature of her character's predicament. As Claire, Hope Davis delivers a beautifully insightful performance as a woman of practicality and reason who apparently has no means of understanding or coping with the certifiable insanity of her father and the possible insanity of her sister. In the fairly small but pivotal role of the deceased genius, the always reliable Hopkins appears entirely in flashbacks and in scenes depicting Catherine's imagination. Finally, Gyllenhaal brings an earnestness and intensity to the part of Hal, a character that could have fallen into callowness in less capable hands.The filmmakers have certainly "opened up" the play to the point where it never feels theater-based or stage bound. The dialogue is literate and incisive, for the most part, although there are times when the movie comes across more as an intellectual exercise than a fully convincing drama about real people. That`s where, lucky for us, the actors step in to perform their magic.