Proof (2005) User Reviews

The Bottle is the Right Shape

[ferguson-6 · 7/10 · 20 September 2005]

Greetings again from the darkness. Rarely do we get to see a film based on a Pulitzer Prize and Tony award winning story (by David Auburn). It does tend to jump the expectations a bit! There are facets of this story that we have seen on screen before in such fine films as "A Beautiful Mind", "Shine" and "Good Will Hunting". The topics of brilliance and insanity often overlap, in fact, the line is often so blurry as to prevent accurate diagnosis. Gwyneth Paltrow is spectacular in her gut-wrenching, emotional roller coaster of a role. I feel very cheated having read recently that she is contemplating giving up acting to enjoy her life and family. This would be a shame as she is only scratching the surface of her talents and artistry. Teaming again with director John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love"), Paltrow delivers an Oscar worthy performance that is emotionally deep and profound. Thank goodness she was selected over the bitter Mary Louise Parker.

The assembled supporting cast is impressive in name; however, Sir Anthony Hopkins is solid, but not great in the relatively small, but crucial role as Paltrow's once genius, then insane, now dead father. His influence on her life is beyond question and how she deals is the heart of the story. Jake Gyllenhaal, although a fine actor, is totally miscast as Hopkins' former student who tries to secure the legacy. Hope Davis is perfect as the irritating sister of Paltrow who has "been working 14 hour days" for 5 years while Paltrow cared for dear old nutty dad.

What prevents the film from being great is that it never decides what it is about. It is a film about a math genius (or two) but it shows almost no math. Is it a film about genius? Is it about insanity? Is it about caring for an elderly parent? Is it a film of self-discovery? All of these are touched on, but none are hit head-on. It is a fine film, definitely worth seeing, but it will probably leave you feeling a bit empty.

Advanced Math

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 7 October 2005]

"Proof", the excellent play by David Auburn, was one of the best things in the New York stage in recent memory. Part of the attraction was the intelligent subject matter, math science, and how it connected the four characters one got to meet. The casting was an ideal one, Mary Louise Parker, Larry Briggman, Johanna Day and Ben Shenkman, playing Cahterine, Robert, Claire and Hal, respectively.

Mr. Auburn and Rebecca Miller, a movie director, herself, took the task of adapting "Proof" for the screen. The result, directed by John Madden, opens the play in cinematic terms, no small undertaking in presenting the movie to a wider audience who might not be interested in science, and much less in the advanced math that plays an important role 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 who has stayed behind to take care of her aging father, a man much esteemed in academic circles, who is suffering from, perhaps, a neurological illness that is killing him slowly. Catherine has, in a way, sacrificed her life in order to see that Robert spends his last days at home instead of at an institution.

The death of the father brings Claire home. This woman, who lives in New York, wants to get rid of everything connected with her father. She even has made plans for Catherine to move from Chicago to be near each other in New York, where things are much better. To complicate things, Harold, the nerdy math student, finds a hidden notebook that might contain a discovery that will revolutionize math. The only problem is the proof might not have been the dead man's own creation.

"Proof" works as a film because of Mr. Madden's direction. We are kept involved in what is going on because we have been won by Catherine, the wounded woman trying to live her life without having to tend to a sick man. Catherine love for math, in a way, makes her realize her place is in the same institution where her father made mathematical discoveries as she will be following his steps.

Gwyneth Paltrow makes an excellent Catherine, a role she had played on the London stage. Ms. Paltrow is a welcome presence in the movie because of the intelligence she projects when working with a good director like John Madden. In fact, it has been a while since we saw this actress in a film.

Hope Davis, another excellent actress, plays Claire, the materialistic sister who has arrived and who wants to transform the frumpy Catherine and mold her to her own taste. Ms. Davis has accustomed us to expect a valuable contribution to any film in which she plays. As Claire, she clearly understand who this character she is portraying really is.

Anthony Hopkins has only a few good moments on the screen. Jake Gyllenhaal's character Harold is not as effective as Ben Shenkman's was on the stage. In fact, Mr. Gyllenhaal, with his dark good looks, seems to be someone who would not be interested in math at all.

"Proof" is an immensely rewarding film thanks to what John Madden's vision.

X * Y = Z. No Mathematical Proof, but a Proof nonetheless.

[Jamester · 8/10 · 13 September 2005]

GWYNETH, GWYNETH, GWYNETH! Not having been overly impressed with any of her previous performances, in Proof, Gwyneth Paltrow brings a highly emotional, nuanced, and so finely-tuned performance, I must say this movie this movie a stand-out.

She inhabits her character so fully, I was pulled in and so completely entranced the entire time. In fact, certain words or phrases are reused and have an uncanny allusion to when they were previously said. The effect as that you experience and follow the moments, and the thoughts of the characters, even though they are so deeply imbedded within. I credit Gwyneth and the director with making this work so well. I've never experienced such an organic link between phrases separated in time in a movie before. Wow!

This is a movie about how a daughter, her sister, and a grad student deal with the passing of a great mathematician. While there may be similarities with 'A Beautiful Mind' and even 'Good Will Hunting', knowing there are any such links didn't help me with this movie and I think actually does a dis-service. This movie stands on its own. Ignore any such comparisons.

Acting-wise, there were strong performances all around with Anthony Hopkins giving a top-notch performance. Jake Gyllenhaal's was strong, but perhaps not to the level of his rather awesome performance in Brokeback Mountain.

Good things aside, the one thing that irked me about this film, was that given the strong link to mathematics, how unbelievable some of the dialogue was regarding the 'math. While Gwyneth's and Hopkins' characters pulled off a sense of mathematical intelligence, Jake's character hardly said anything mathematically competent and even came across as flustered in expressing himself mathematically leaving me feeling cheated. In my view, this is chiefly the fault of the screenplay but to a lesser extent in the actor's portrayal. Ignore this rather small point, and this movie passes with flying colours. Q.E.D.

Paltrow Shines As A Fragile Woman In Crisis

[noralee · 7/10 · 12 October 2005]

"Proof" hones in on the emotional relationships in the play. With Rebecca Miller jointly credited with David Auburn on adapting his play, this is less coy about who did what to whom when in reality or delusion than it is about connections between people.

The flashbacks cut effectively back and forth and smooth out where each character is coming from.

"Catherine," the daughter of a brilliant mathematician who is somewhat modeled on John Nash's struggles with madness which were portrayed in "A Beautiful Mind," is still the focal point of attention. But with the other characters fleshed out more Gwyneth Paltrow has more to naturalistically react to than the stage actresses (I saw it on Broadway with a mercurial Anne Heche). Paltrow brings unexpected fragility to the role and makes her sarcastic accusations to her sister come out of personal pain and not just spitefulness. You really see that she is emotionally ravaged from putting her life and mind on hold for a father with a very strong personality.

Anthony Hopkins is unusually paternal as the father and you understand her attractions and fear of him, as well as why the sister had to flee how insecure she felt there, as Hope Davis manages to breathe some life into a strident character. We see very clearly the demands of being a caregiver to a legend. Unlike in "Iris" at the end of careers, we do ache at the sacrifices the young caregiver has made and how this claustrophobic existence has led to her own crippling doubts about her work, her life and her sanity.

Jake Gyllenhaal is the hunkiest, most adorable, rock 'n' rollin' math graduate student since Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting" and could help increase math enrollments around the country. But as irresistible as he is, and their relationship is literally more believably fleshed out as young people than in the play, we also can share Paltrow's suspicion of him. But we see more of his activities, as the film opens up the play, so we too clearly know before she that he has regained in our credibility as he seeks his proof. I don't mind that the film adds to the romantic aspects and drawn out coda as I thought the play tempted unfulfillingly in that direction and it is a means to help her regain the multiple meanings of proof -- as evidence, as trust, as confidence.

Director John Madden keeps the camera moving actively during long dialog interchanges, reflecting "Catherine"s agitated state of mind. The house and academic setting well establish the atmosphere, particularly when there's more people around, though some of the outdoor shots seemed like filler.

The score is occasionally intrusive, but the concluding voice-over is even more annoying and unnecessary.

Proof that a play can become a film.

[JohnDeSando · 12 September 2005]

Knowing that Proof won Tony and Pulitzer awards, I approach the film with reverence and skepticism, given the stage production had a single set and the film uses several other locations, as films are wont to do. I am here to report the play is well-adapted to film, with an Oscar-worthy performance by Gwyneth Paltrow, no such honor for Anthony Hopkins, and a miscasting for a much too hunky Jake Gyllenhall as a mathematician. The themes of parental influence, truth and doubt, trust, and appearance and reality are nicely woven into a deceptively lean script (Just think of the play Copenhagen, peopled by physics types, and its runaway verbosity).

David Auburn's script allows Paltrow to muse about her intellectual and emotional inheritance from her genius dad, whose funeral is imminent. At the same time a question of plagiarism offers a conflict that is both vexing and irresolvable. Jake Gyllenhaal's young professor Hal, not as dorky as he should be, provides romance and refereeing between sisters about the authorship of research discovered in the prof's drawer.

But mostly this is a story of a family and the deep ties between a father and his daughter. Her debt to him genetically and academically is palpable; his influence on her, even in his dementia and finally his death, is always present.

Proof or mysticism?

[duqupb · 7/10 · 23 November 2006]

I liked this movie very much, but I find the way in which Hollywood usually portrays mathematicians to be rather embarrassing, clumsy and unrealistic. Such characters are often approached with some sort of reverential fear and cautiousness, as if mathematicians were spiritual or religious mystics: what a paradox!

Hopkins' character is unfortunately no exception.

Gyllenhaal's cocky character, on the other hand, is curiously overconfident, impulsive and outgoing for a typical Maths grad.

Paltrow's fascinating and truly likable character is the one of a young girl who is both strengthened and stifled by her father's overbearing intellectual personality and her close relationship with him.

Their strong bond has given her the skills to assert herself individually and intellectually, but she is still considerably hesitant and insecure in the social and interpersonal sphere.

Her frustrated, scheming and calculating sister tries to take advantage of Paltrow's intense grief and of her shyness and insecurity in order to kick her out of her father's house to sell it for her sole profit.

Paltrow good

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 27 July 2016]

Catherine Llewellyn (Gwyneth Paltrow) is struggling to deal with the death of her genius math professor father Robert (Anthony Hopkins). He deteriorated mentally in his last years which forced her to quit school and take care of him. His former student Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) is working through a mountain of Robert's incoherent notebooks to find anything worth saving. Catherine's sister Claire (Hope Davis) arrives for the funeral and seeks to bring Catherine back to New York for treatment. When Hal discovers a notebook filled with a ground-breaking math proof, Catherine claims it to be written by her.

This is a compelling portrayal of the mathematical obsession. It's not as flashy or romantic as cinema tries to dress up math sometimes. It is a bit sad. Paltrow does great work following Hopkins. She shows that she's not simply a romantic lead. It's a compelling character study.

Paltrow should have got an Oscar nomination

[zebra782 · 7/10 · 21 July 2007]

Not every novel that won a Pulitzer can be transformed into a good film screenplay, that what happened in this movie, nonetheless the acting was extraordinary.

Gwyneth Paltrow is shining like a star in every single moment of the film, this is absolutely Oscar i don't know what on earth could she have done better to earn the nomination.

Anthony Hopkins,Jake Gyllenhaal and even Hope Davis did not disappoint me, no comment about Hopkins one of the greatest of his time,Gyllenhaal is a very talented and emotional actor the chemistry between him and Paltrow was fantastic, thanks to the good direction.

beautifully acted, smartly directed, a very good film.

"Proof" Adds Up

[evanston_dad · 9/10 · 2 October 2005]

I love a movie in which every moment of it feels authentic, and "Proof" is that kind of movie. Critics have had a fairly mediocre response to the film, so I was somewhat surprised that I liked it so much. But it's easily one of the best movies I've seen this year.

I didn't see the David Auburn play on which the movie is based, and maybe many of the film's detractors have: screen adaptations of favorite plays often seem to dilute them to the detriment of the story. But if this movie is worse than its stage counterpart, it must have made one damn fine play.

The acting in this film is its major attribute, and director John Madden is wise enough to realize the talent of his ensemble and stand out of their way. He plays a bit with chronology and lets the pieces of his story click into place much like a math puzzle; I don't know whether or not this is original to the film or borrowed from the play, but either way it works well. But mostly, he lets the actors strut their stuff, and the four principals make the most of meaty roles.

Most of the acclaim has been falling, and rightly so, to Gwyneth Paltrow, who gives a full-bodied, textured and powerful performance as Catherine, who has inherited her genius at math from her father and is deathly afraid that she may have inherited his madness as well. I don't know that Paltrow has yet had a role as substantial as this one, and she flexes her acting chops in a way I have not seen her do outside of her underrated performance in "Sylvia." Hope Davis matches her scene for scene as the astringent older sister; it's refreshing to see Davis break away from the mousy, mealy persona she so frequently adopts and play this crisp, overwhelming character. The male actors have less to do overall, but the roles are perfectly cast. Jake Gyllenhaal is ripe for stardom, and this may be the year that brings it. Anthony Hopkins has been dismissed as hammy here, but I think he does an effective job of portraying mental illness, and creates heartbreaking moments that could have been ruined had they been played differently.

"Proof" feels entirely honest about the dynamics of dysfunctional families; you just know David Auburn is writing from personal experience. Like Robert Redford's "Ordinary People," if you have any exposure to similar family dynamics, you know the team that put the film together got everything just right. "Proof" also creates a parallel between mathematics and the messiness of life that makes one re-evaluate the rigidity of what always appears to be an exact science. As one must accept a level of ambiguity in life, one must also be willing to make leaps of faith in mathematics, because nothing can be 100% proved.

I highly recommend this film. It's satisfying on both an intellectual and emotional level. And any movie that can make math exciting to me gets an automatic thumbs up.

Grade: A

Could Be Much Better

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 15 November 2006]

In Chicago, on the day of her twenty-seventh birthday, Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) receives her sister Claire (Hope Davis) from New York for the funeral of their father Robert (Anthony Hopkins), who passed away a couple of days before. Robert was a brilliant mathematician that became bughouse, and Catherine had taken care of him for the last five years, inclusive quitting her studies in the faculty, and she is concerned about the possibility of having inherited his insanity. The mathematician of the University of Chicago, Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), is making a research in Robert's notebooks, trying to find any brilliant proof that Robert might have produced in one moment of lucidity. When Hal has one nightstand with Catherine, she gives a notebook to him with the development of a unique mathematics theory that Catherine claims that she developed. Hal and Claire do not believe on her, until the truth is disclosed.

I expected much more of "Proof" after watching its trailer. In spite of having good interpretations and direction, the story is very short and I felt the movie too long. The relationship between Catherine and her father is well explored, but the differences between Catherine and her sister are slightly approached and the screenplay could have contemplated much more about this rancorous relationship. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Prova" ("The Proof")

No depth whatsoever

[christophe92300 · 2/10 · 6 November 2014]

Getting together a talented cast (Gyllenhaal and the ageless Anthony Hopkins) to create such an insipid and boring movie... what a waste ! And to think that the scenario is adapted from a play, one doesn't want to imagine what it must be like. The script clearly lacks depth, there is not much going on with the characters who are dreadfully superficial and under-exploited. The lines are robotic, the actors are badly directed, the mise-en-scène is flat and the cheap pseudo intellectualism and melodramaticism oozing from this scenario are cringe-worthy. At the end you just feel you've been going in circles and lost 1h30 watching this completely uninteresting movie.

Madden + Paltrow = Something Good. Proof? Proof.

[galasius · 9/10 · 12 September 2005]

This film is about death, love, and mental incapacity. There are bound to be endless clichés, comparisons, and parallels drawn with Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind", so I won't go there.

In the end, this film is all about Gwyneth Paltrow.

She is on screen at least 80% of this film. Her character dances between mourning, anger, remorse, confusion, fear, vulnerability, sadness, and just a little bit of love. There are very dramatic changes in emotion from moment to moment, and Paltrow pulls it off brilliantly.

Sir Anthony Hopkins role, while relatively small, is crucial to the film. His performance was good, but not great. But it didn't really matter, as Proof is all about Paltrow. Hope Davis and Jake Gyllenhaal also gave solid performances, but their as with Hopkin's role were really nothing more than support Paltrow.

The biggest disappointment for me was the almost total lack of any 'real' mathematics. For a film that revolves around brilliant mathematical proofs, there's an almost painful scarcity of and real math in the film. There are shots of seemingly random equations scrawled across paper or a blackboard, and the odd conversation making reference to some known mathematical law or theorem, but I would have liked more.

IF you want a happy film, go see something else. If you want a mindless film, go see something else. If you want a typical love story, go see something else. If you want an intelligent well written and presented story of substance involving a a character experiencing a roller-coaster of emotions, Proof may be for you.

Not totally convincing, but enjoyable and well done

[secondtake · 7/10 · 14 January 2010]

Proof (2005)

By the end, the pieces that worked made up for those that didn't. The movie was simple enough to hold together and subtle enough to make it interesting and, well, enjoyable. A father and daughter pair of math geniuses, and their mental anguish as well as their triumphs of doing good math, make for a heartwarming plot, and a fairly intimate one. It's not blown out of proportion--if anything, it pulls back on the some of the idiosyncrasies these kinds of people would show to each other and to the world.

The premise is a bit limited, in a way, a kind of trap because it has one theme--the possible final amazing proof the father may have left behind in one of his many journals--and the director, John Madden, plays it out with methodical precision. The lead actors have to hold it together, and Gwenyth Paltrow is commanding, for sure, even though more restrained than another actress would have been in the same shoes. Anthony Hopkins, as the father, is equally in control, and if a caricature of sorts, a convincing one. Most impressive, to the point of actual agitation, is the daughter's sister, played by Hope Davis, and when she arrives the movie perks up but also gets under your skin, as it should, and you want to scream at her. The one weakness is the boyfriend in it all, a dull and very un-math-like hunk, Jake Gyllenhaal.

The plot does matter very much, and it takes a couple of beautiful twists that are worth the wait. And the pace is agreeable, to use a mild word--it's not an exciting film, but with all the flashbacks and pretty scenes at night and so on, it's a enjoyable one.

Mathematics For Dummies

[Lechuguilla · 2/10 · 8 March 2008]

Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the 27 year-old daughter of a recently deceased mathematician, played by Anthony Hopkins. Catherine grieves for her father who suffered from insanity before he died. Now, she must confront the possibility that she may have inherited some of her father's mental tendencies. One of her father's students, a young man named Herald, as well as Claire, Catherine's scheming sister, make Catherine's life even more difficult. It's been at least a year since I have watched a film so annoying as "Proof".

You would think that for a film wherein mathematics is a central focus of characters' lives, there would be dialogue references to "differential equations", or "convergent series", or "double integral", or "binomial expansion", or other math concepts. Nothing doing. There's some minimal babble about "prime numbers". But the film goes out of its way to avoid actual discussion of mathematics.

Instead, we have to endure emotional diatribes from Catherine, and her ongoing malaise related to Herald and Claire. Which is itself a contradiction. As a mathematician herself, Catherine's responses should be thoughtful and logical, not emotional. Yet, her reactions are totally emotional and illogical. Clearly, the filmmakers here consider viewers to be mathematical dummies. So they create a phony main character, to enhance verbal conflict, and in so doing evade intellectual dialogue. On the DVD extras, the actors even seem proud that mathematics is not discussed. And that, in turn, made me have an even lower opinion of them.

Throughout the film Catherine whines, moans, sulks, and pouts. I absolutely could not stand her. And Gwyneth Paltrow's annoying nasal voice makes her character almost unendurable.

A much better movie could have been made if they had dumped Catherine, and zeroed in on the Anthony Hopkins character. Watching him, and listening to him talk about the wonders and mysteries of mathematics with Herald, would have been far more interesting and rewarding.

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

[TxMike · 22 March 2006]

It certainly isn't necessary to be well-versed in mathematics to enjoy this movie, but it does help, if only to identify with the personalities that inhabit this most arcane "science." This story is told in the "present" and via flashbacks, and the editing facilitates it very nicely. In the present, in Chicago, the mathematician and father Robert (Anthony Hopkins) has just died, his at-home daughter Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) prepares for the arrival from NY of her somewhat estranged older sister Claire (Hope Davis). The sisters always seem to be at odds, and this is magnified several times when Catherine finds out that Claire is also planning on selling the family residence right away, at the same time hoping to convince Catherine to move to NY with her. See, Robert did his ground-breaking work in his early 20s and shortly thereafter began to go mad, spending the last 40-odd years of his life scribbling nonsense in notebooks. Claire is afraid her sister is following in dad's mental steps.

Jake Gyllenhaal is a 20-something mathematics post-graduate Hal who understands Robert's contributions, and seems to have come to accept that he (and most others) will never have a hope of contributing at that very high level. But he is both romantically attracted to Catherine, and also realizes she may have inherited Robert's gift for ground-breaking mathematics. He wants to help her realize that too.

This movie is not about mathematics, it isn't really about Robert. It is about Catherine, afraid she is becoming mad like her dad, but also realizing that she may have talents that she must develop. In a great sense, the future of our world depends on the occasional genius coming up with striking advances, so what happens if one of them "breaks the chain" and refuses to use their gift? Catherine is torn between retreating, giving up, and letting herself go insane without struggle. But is that her path? Maybe she only inherited the genius, and will NOT go insane. The movie is about her inner struggle to cope with both possibilities.

May 2009 edit: Saw it again last night, it was as good and fresh as when I watched it 3 years ago. Good movie.

SPOILERS FOLLOW. In the heat of the sister/sister friction after the funeral services, and when Catherine is talking to Hal, who had been going through the 103 notebooks of gibberish Robert had written, looking for a spark of genius, Catherine gave him a key to an upstairs desk. In it he found one notebook which contained an elegant "proof" of a long-standing problem regarding prime numbers. Catherine said she wrote it, but Claire doesn't think she is capable. Hal says the handwriting looks like Robert's. He has two groups of mathematicians examine it and, while they didn't grasp all the transformations, they could NOT find anything wrong with it. A flashback shows us, the audience, that Robert could not have written it, indeed it was Cathernie's. On the verge of leaving for NY with her sister, that flashback in her mind made her go back, and the movie ends with her back 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 she will. So she might as well work as if she will not!

Paltrow & Hopkins Were Great

[whpratt1 · 7/10 · 8 October 2008]

Great story about a young girl who loved her father very much and followed in his footsteps in the world of mathematics in Chicago, Illinois. This girl is Catherine, (Gwyneth Paltrow) who learns that her father is mentally going down hill and she cares for him and goes to college at the same time. Robert is the name of her father, (Anthony Hopkins) who thinks he is writing a proof in mathematics, which is a step further in the mathematician field of science. After Robert dies, Catherine goes to pieces and worries that she will become mentally disturbed like her father and she pulls into herself and just stays at home. Eventually, Catherine's sister who lives in New York City intends to take her sister from her home and bring her into the New York City area. This is a very deep film with plenty of flashbacks, along with great acting between Paltrow & Hopkins. Enjoy.

All middle...

[LivingDog · 7/10 · 19 April 2006]

I am a big scifi/action movie fan - from Arnold to Mel to Bruce - they're all good and always a great ride. This time I thought I would try something I heard about (Proof) which reminded me of another movie (A Beautiful Mind) and so I tried it.

This was a good movie, but decidedly, like the ending, lacking a goal. It began, explained relationships among the actors, ... I mean characters, and then softly ended. For me it was all "middle." No extremes - there was shouting, but I didn't feel a thing for any of the characters. Well, the math professor in his office I liked. For some reason my interest peaked when he got to do some lines.

Maybe it was me. But this movie seemed like an hour and a half of talking without any emotion. I mean the movie didn't build the relationship between the daughter and her father; the boyfriend and the daughter; the daughter and her sister. All I could do was keep waiting to feel something for any of the main characters... and nothing happened.

I'll say this - I enjoyed the movie b/c I know what it is like to work on a physics research project albeit math is especially difficult. The last famous proof I heard of was Fermat's principle - the proof was over 250 pages and used geometry as well as other areas of mathematics. So having a scientific background may help you watch this movie through, but feel any interest? Nope. It was more of a relationship movie than a movie about math and the people in it.

Maybe that's it! The movie had nothing to do with the math and was in reality a flick for emotionalism - only using math to entice poor souls like me willing to try something that may be intellectually interesting. It was just that and just not interesting. 7 out of 10.

-Zafoid

PS: the end wasn't an end. The movie just stopped leaving you without any closure. After thinking about it I guess that's like life... but then again we do get to see what happens _in the end_.

-Z

Stagey,unsatisfying adaptation of an award-winning Play

[BJJManchester · 6/10 · 8 June 2012]

A big screen version of a Pulitzer Prize winning stage play,PROOF eventually all too obviously falls victim to it's theatrical origins and ends up as flat and unexceptional with little cinematic qualities.

A brilliant but ageing mathematician Robert (Anthony Hopkins), is looked after by his young daughter Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) through serious mental health problems until his death.Catherine has followed in her father's mathematical footsteps,and a former student of her father's,Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) thinks he may have found evidence of products of her father's work in various notebooks.Catherine's sister Claire (Hope Davis) arrives for the funeral,and begins to think her sister is showing signs of mental illness like their father,but it soon emerges that it may be Catherine and not Robert who is responsible for this academic breakthrough, according to further research by Hal in the various notebooks.But it may not be an easy task for her to persuade the University where her father taught and she sporadically attends,about such proof.

The operations of maths and mathematicians has not proved to be a particularly exciting subject in cinema, and PROOF is no exception to that rule.Like other titles such as GOOD WILL HUNTING,PI and A BEAUTIFUL MIND,there is a tendency to treat such characters as socially awkward,eccentric and mentally ill to beef up interest in the subject matter,though this veers into caricature and stereotyping.Director John Madden attempts to open up the stage original by way of actual Chicago locations,the addition of superfluous minor characters and some interesting camera movement,but the only really clever moments occur at the very beginning,with a semi-surrealist conversation between Hopkins and Paltrow which climaxes in a darkly amusing and adroit fashion,but there on in is afflicted by slabs of typically pretentious theatrical dialogue,unsympathetic characters and ill-cast actors.

The acting on show eventually becomes too strident and over-emphatic at the cost of naturalness;La Paltrow goes through all kinds of emotions like fear,hate,love,sadness,desire,aggression,spite and petulance,without making her mentally fragile character likable or endearing,sometimes dissolving into theatrical histrionics which do not expose themselves well on the big screen.She clearly seems to be trying for another Oscar here as she won several years previously with Madden in Shakespeare IN LOVE,but in the event only received a Golden Globe nomination (which she lost to Felicity Huffman), and tries rather too hard and not too subtly in doing so.Hopkins does not appear that much but performs in his familiar post-Hannibal mode of speaking quietly one moment then bellowing out explosively the next, while Gyllenhall is ineffectual and whiny as Gwynnie's would-be suitor and fellow maths geek.The three principals don't really convince as maths devotees,and there is very little detail of the equations involved,which makes such emoting even less believable.The less academically-inclined main character, played by Davis, actually comes across as the most personable despite some brusque,neurotic,avaricious aspects,and wants to genuinely help her troubled sister.

But PROOF's main problem is that the story is not particularly interesting or edifying,a bit like mathematics itself as most of the really important discoveries and revelations on the subject were made thousands of years ago (mainly in Ancient Greece), and any that are made in the modern era come across as slight amendments that cause barely a flicker of interest in the media or the general public.Gwyneth Paltrow has also appeared in the stage version,and that's where it basically belongs,as PROOF is essentially a theatrical and not cinematic experience.

RATING:5 and a half out of 10.

Interesting without being great...

[ajs-10 · 7/10 · 30 January 2011]

This is one of those films that I've seen before and remember the beginning, but can never remember the ending. Maybe it's because I never got to the end before, but this time I did. This appealed to me because I studied mathematics (amongst other things) at university and thought it might strike a chord. It did, but not in the way I was expecting… But more of that later, here's a brief summary before I give you my thoughts (summary haters please solve a couple of differential equations while I write the next paragraph).

Catherine's father, Robert, has recently died, he was a great mathematician in his day but insanity had plagued his latter years. She had looked after him for the last five years of his life at their home in Chicago and is now coming to terms with his loss. A former student of his, Harold Dobbs (Hal), is looking through his notebooks hoping to find something of note. As the funeral approaches, Catherine's sister, Claire, arrives from New York. She is a successful businesswoman and takes her slightly mentally unstable sister in hand. After the funeral a wake is held back at the house and Catherine gets together with Hal. The following day she gives him the key to her father's desk where he finds just what he's been looking for, a brilliant mathematical proof. The trouble is, Catherine claims she wrote it… there is a lot of doubt though. Has Catherine inherited her father's genius, amongst other things, or did he write it in one of his more lucid periods? Well I guess I'd be giving too much away if I told you here.

First off, really great performances from both Gwyneth Paltrow as Catherine and Hope Davis as Claire. Jake Gyllenhaal was adequate as Hal and Anthony Hopkins was as good as ever in the flashbacks of Robert. Now, to the film, it is based on a play by David Auburn, who also co-wrote the screenplay, and I find films based on plays sometimes suffer; they can become a little claustrophobic. This, unfortunately is a case in point. Although an effort is made to broaden the scope of the story by taking parts of it outside, it's still very much a character driven piece which I'm afraid I found a little dry.

The plot I found a little weak, it all boiled down to a small thing that could so easily have been resolved (I'm sorry I don't want to say what it is… spoilers). I feel that too much time was taken to set up the characters and the back story and this didn't quite work on film. So, over all, some great performances in what is essentially a play transferred to the big screen. Although the plot is weak in places and it is pretty slow, I still recommend it (just).

My score: 6.7/10

Finely Etched Portrait by Paltrow

[sobaok · 10/10 · 4 October 2005]

Gwyneth Paltrow gives a haunting portrayal of a daughter whose devotion to a mentally challenged father draws out her own mental edges. As care-giver for an elderly parent I am well aware of our fragile mental world and Paltrow's performance shines with nothing but truth. Her honesty and the emotional territory she portrayals are "proof" of her integrity as an actress. The film is impressively directed -- the script is paced compellingly and draws the viewer into a life situation that most of us simply refuse to acknowledge and try to avoid. Once the "great mind" of our genius is "gone" -- who are we? Hope Davis as Paltrow's sister does a great job of showing how striving for her "normalacy" is the ultimate lunacy. Great ensemble playing by all. I highly recommend this film.

Madden style

[yusufpiskin · 7/10 · 13 March 2020]

I hate math. I really do. I actually watched the movie for Jake Gyllenhaal but then I was totally drawn into the story because of Gwyneth Paltrow's fine acting. She really amazed me. Since Anthony Hopkins played the cannibalist I'm scared of him. And he also sorta scares me a little in this movie. But this isn't a bad thing in this case. I liked the movie for its intensity of portraying the relationships between father and daughter and sister and sister and girl and boy. Jake Gyllenhaal actually has only a quite small part in the film so if you think of watching it just because of him you might feel disappointed afterwards. If you watch it for Gwyneth Paltrow then you definitely won't be disappointed at all.

Mind-numbingly trite, boring, and detached from reality

[john_seater · 1/10 · 4 September 2015]

In the first totally boring 40 minutes of this movie, we learn that Robert was a mad mathematician in the math department at the University of Chicago, but he just died a few days ago and is to be buried imminently. His appearance is brought to us courtesy of flashbacks that run throughout the movie, which inform us that his daughter Catherine, a budding mathematician, dropped out of school to care for him. The movie progresses soon to the funeral, where one eulogist says, "This is the man who at the age of 22 invented the mathematical techniques for studying rational behavior." How impressive. The reality is that a great many mathematicians developed a wide range of techniques that social scientists use to study rational behavior. The writers plainly have no idea who developed any of those techniques or even what they are. Instead, they probably heard of John Nash who got the Nobel prize in Economics for his work on game theory. Nash also was nuts. That seems to be the model for Robert.

The funeral scene is ridiculous beyond belief, and the post-funeral scene outside the church is nearly as bad. Then there's the wake. Complete idiocy. The wake scene is followed by the obligatory bed scene with Catherine and Hal (Robert's PhD student), which takes place during the wake. Catherine has seen Hal once or twice in the past. She shows him her room, which is cluttered with math books that she has read in her spare time, when she wasn't caring for her father. Catherine tells Hal he's not boring. Hal is so overwhelmed by such appreciation for a dull mathematician that he is overcome by desire to lay Catherine, which he does. Catherine, who was so upset during the funeral that she interrupted it with a rambling diatribe, now she lets this guy, whom she barely knows, screw her just a few hours after the funeral while a bunch of wild party-goers are downstairs celebrating/mourning her father's passing. After consummation, with Hal still on top of her and apparently still inside her, she breaks down in tears. Only in Hollywood could someone come up with such garbage.

Then there is the dialog the next morning. This isn't worth going into in detail any more. Let me just say the dialog is utterly childish. So here we are over 40 or 50 minutes into the movie, and nothing interesting or credible has happened.

At this point, Hal is looking over some of Robert's copious notes that Catherine has shown him. He is thunderstruck at what he sees, declaring, "It's a proof. Er, I think it's a proof. If it's what I think it is, it's a major breakthrough. A proof of something mathematicians have been working on for centuries...Blah, blah." No clue what that something might be, undoubtedly because the script writers wouldn't know addition from subtraction, much less what to say about an important problem in number theory. Then lo and behold, Catherine tells us that she, not her father, did the proof and wrote the notes that her new-found lover Hal is talking about. She who has not been to grad school yet. But don't forget, she reads math on the side. She also worked with her father. So at 27, with no formal training, she solves the great prime number puzzle of all time. (All this is coming out in the hangover everyone is in the morning after the big party at the wake and the gripping bed scene.) Are you getting the idea just how stupid this movie is? By the way, it has to add ridiculous political correctness to an already ridiculous plot. In the entire history of mathematics, not one major theory, not a single one, ever has been proved by a woman. Yet here we have an untrained dilettante figuring out a result that has puzzled great mathematicians for centuries. Why didn't they make her a bisexual trans-gender just to round things out? Unfortunately, Catherine's handwriting is nearly identical to her father's, so lover boy Hal and Catherine's witch-sister Claire doubt that Catherine did the work. Such drama! Incredibly gripping! Catherine cannot understand why lover boy Hal, he of the one-night stand just the night before, cannot believe that she did it. After all, the notes are in her father's handwriting. Catherine replies that her writing just happens to look like her father's. Later, after reading over the notes, lover boy Hal informs us that he has changed his mind. He adds that the handwriting problem is illusory because sometimes children have similar handwriting as their parents, especially if they spend a lot of time together. Every mathematician knows that, right? The subsequent banalities and foolishness spew forth in seemingly unlimited supply.

One last thing does require comment. This movie indulges itself in the usual and grossly wrong view that all great mathematicians and scientists are crazy. In this movie, both Catherine and her father are disturbed, to say the least. The reason everyone (especially those who don't know anything about mathematics) thought A Beautiful Mind was so good is that the main guy does a great mental thing even though he is nuts. Believe it or not, that sort of thing is the exception, the very rare exception, not the rule. Yet in this movie, not one but two main characters are nuts and also happen to be brilliant. That's the only way that the shallow ignoramuses who write this drivel (THAT's who wrote it) can understand people with the intelligence, insight, knowledge, and imagination to do something original: they must be crazy because they aren't like Hollywood script writers.

This movie is a tedious, boring, un-insightful, routine, and warped exercise in Hollywood's perverted, indeed depraved, view of the world. It is, in a word, terrible. If you have any brains at all, you run the risk of losing them if you watch this silly movie.

powerful performance

[favoritesoul · 8/10 · 23 September 2005]

by the dialogue, you can tell this story began as a very good play. the issue with making a movie from a very good play is that you have to add something impossible to do on stage. i think paltrow does an excellent job. i'm not a big gwyn fan, but the way she portrayed her deep sadness throughout the movie, in closeups you wouldn't see from the balcony section of a theater - the fragility of her grasp on reality, the trauma of watching her father deteriorate before her eyes... this is something beyond "a beautiful mind," which centered more on the hallucinations and surreality of a victim of mental disease. "proof," instead, focuses on the father-daughter relationship and how, even after caring for his deteriorated mind for years, a daughter doesn't think twice about seeking her father's approval - as if he could be coherent for the moment she needed him to be. i thought that was the most poignant part of the movie. there's not a lot to the story of the movie, but the depth in the performances - paltrow, hopkins and hope davis - is worth the ticket. its nice to actually see a very good movie once in a while.

well acted adaptation

[Buddy-51 · 7/10 · 23 July 2007]

Superb 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 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. Likewise, 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.

You've got to be kidding.

[nonconformist · 3/10 · 1 June 2006]

You've got to be kidding. A seven out of ten? I guess it's possible, people do watch Dr. Phil. That's pretty painful as well. But not as painful as watching Paltrow who's about ten years too old for the part. A character that sulks and wallows in self-pity but conveniently stops for five minutes to bed a young male model stud that is also a math genius. This is the only respite. She cries and wines the rest of the movie. The math stud is madly in love with her but we can't understand why. The only explanation is they both have serious personality problems. If you have those same types of problems you might like the movie. I won't bother to go into the "plot", other than to say it's ridicules, boring and utterly predictable. The movie is obviously for women and the only men who will sit through this turkey are doing so just to keep their wives from getting angry and acting like the star of Proof.