Proof

Plot synopsis:
The movie opens with Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) talking to her father Robert (Anthony Hopkins) after he startles her watching TV in the middle of the night. He gives her a bottle of champagne for her birthday, which she starts drinking from the bottle, commenting on how bad it is. They chat for a while about the nature of insanity and how he is crazy, but then she challenges his admission that he is crazy, pointing out that he had just admitted that the nature of insanity is that you can't acknowledge your own insanity. He reminds her that he's not just crazy he died last week and his funeral is tomorrow.Awoken from this dream, Catherine realizes that there is someone still upstairs -- Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a former student of Robert's. Robert was a professor in the University of Chicago's math department and Hal is a fledgling mathematician, struggling to advance in the field with any sort of developments of his own. In his younger years, Robert had made many advances in mathematics, revolutionizing the field twice before 22, and is quite famous and well regarded for it, but struggled with mental illness for the last 20+ years of his life.Catherine asks him why he is still there and he confesses that he thinks that somewhere in Robert's books of notes there has to be additional products of his mathematical genius. Catherine asks him what there has been in the notes he's made it through. Hal confirms that it was gibberish, but tells her that it would make a career for someone to find even a fraction of the advances Robert made in his early to mid twenties. She asks if he is trying to steal her father's work, and he says that, no, he would credit the discovery to her father. She demands to see his backpack and pulls it off of his back, dumping it out while trying to find any of her father's belongings. Nothing found, she apologizes and he gets ready to leave. As he's walking out the door she picks up his folded up coat from a chair, thinking he is forgetting the garment, but a notebook falls out. She yells at him, and calls the cops, but he tells her that he was going to give it to her as a present because it has something complimentary written about her in it. He leaves, and the cops pull up, but she sends them away.The next day, for the funeral, Catherine's sister Claire (Hope Davis) arrives in a town car. A huge contrast to the unkempt Catherine, Claire is an overly put together, bordering on completely neurotic New Yorker. Relations between the sisters are tense, and Catherine can't stand her sister's constant harping on appearance-related issues. Catherine is also upset that Claire didn't care for her father as much as Catherine did in his final years. Catherine's ultimately futile struggle to keep up with her own studies as her father ceases to be able to care for himself is documented in a series of flashbacks. She had started math grad school at Northwestern (Robert asks her: "You actually want to live in Evanston?") and fell behind in her coursework after she returned to check on her father and found him living amongst dirty dishes and sitting outside. He tells her that his brain is working again after the mental illness had interrupted it for a number of years, but she stays to take care of him.At the funeral, a lot of this frustration on Catherine's part comes out. She is upset at the high number of people there, in this very somber ceremony planned by others, and held in Rockefeller Chapel, a huge Gothic structure that is part of University of Chicago. She interrupts a string quartet and yells at everyone for not being there for her father while he was alive, and ends by saying she's glad her father died. After she storms out, Hal follows her and asks if she needs to be walked home. She declines his offer.Claire is set on selling Robert's house back to the University, and Catherine is upset that she will be kicked out, since this is where she's been living for the past few years. Claire wants to bring Catherine to New York, and it comes out that Catherine may be struggling with the same mental illnesses that her father struggled with. They have a wake at the house the night after the funeral, and Hal's band plays. Claire gets smashed drinking with a theoretical physicist from the University, and Catherine and Hal end up sleeping together.After they consummate their affections, Catherine is seemingly comfortable with Hal's intentions toward her family, and gives him a key to her father's desk. He goes up to the office and finds a notebook which contains a lengthy but apparently very important proof a mathematical discovery of sorts. He is very excited and shows the discovery to Catherine and Claire, saying that this discovery could get anyone tenure at any math department in the country. He asks Catherine how long she knew about this and why she didn't tell him about it. She tells him that she wrote it. This is met with silence from Hal and incredulity from Claire. The handwriting looks like Robert's, but Catherine claims it is her own. Claire pushes Hal into a corner and forces him to admit that he is somewhat doubtful that Catherine could have written the proof. She gets upset and tries to tear the book up, but Hal takes it to have people in the math department look at it and see if the proof is accurate.The next day as Claire and Catherine are packing up in separate parts of the house, Catherine suddenly goes berserk and starts throwing things before collapsing on her knees and crying. Claire comforts her and Catherine sobs "I stole it from him, I stole it from him." Claire says that it is okay and that she was living under a lot of stress with their father.Hal takes the proof to be examined by his colleagues, who believe the proof to be valid. He comes to the house as Claire and Catherine are leaving. Claire has convinced Catherine to come live in New York, and Catherine has apparently not said a word since her breakdown. Claire tells Hal to leave. He wants to see Catherine. She emerges from the house and appears completely depressed and broken. She is terse with him, but he tells her that the proof works, but that he doesn't think that her father wrote it because there is newer mathematics in it (he says it is a "hipper" proof than someone of her father's generation would have written). She is unmoved as he tells her that he thinks she wrote it and wants her to explain it to him sometime. The sisters get into a car and head to the airport. Hal sprints after the car and throws the book through the window and onto Catherine's lap.They arrive at the airport and are sitting in the terminal. In another flashback, it is revealed that after Catherine dropped out of school to care for her father he challenges her to work on math, which she does, and there are scenes of them sitting across from each other studying math books and writing. She becomes engrossed and doesn't heed his calls to come talk as promptly as she had. She is working on the proof and really was the one who wrote it. When she comes to show him, she realizes that her father has slipped back into his illness. When she walks into the room he is too excited to look at what she wants to show him, demanding that she read aloud a proof that he has written and says is ground breaking. She reads it aloud and begins crying as she does, as the "proof" is in fact complete nonsense. She locks her own proof, the truly ground breaking one, into his desk drawer, where it presumably stays until Hal discovers it, because she realizes that her father is now incapable of understanding what she has accomplished. So it seems that when she sobbed that she had stolen the proof from him, she was speaking of her guilt for doing her own work and not supporting her father as she worked on the proof. She is also troubled because she sees herself in her father, realizing that if she has his genius, then she might also slip into serious mental illness like him.Back in the airport, Catherine has begun to come to terms with her own genius and her own flaws, aided by Hal's confidence in her. She decides that she does not need to go with her sister to New York and runs out of the airport. She returns to University of Chicago, and the movie ends with her and Hal meeting up on some benches on campus and discussing the proof, as students mill around them.

Tags: insanity, romantic, flashback

Review:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
Hope Davis was great as the more "normal," but controlling sister Claire, her second best performance ever, after the under-appreciated one she gave in "American Splendor" (be sure to rent THAT movie if you haven't seen it), and she manages to be more sympathetic than the actress who played her in the stage version.
Two, it is not believable that in a crucial scene towards the end of the movie, that neither Catherine and especially the more materialistic Claire would not care what ultimately happens to the proof, especially when being told of its possible value.Aside from these flaws, if you are looking for intelligent fare and a break from mindless action films and the mostly unfunny comedies of the past summer, you owe it to yourself to see this film.
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.
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.
When I got out of the cinema, I was still thinking about the film -how Paltrow, Gyllenhaal and Davis was near to perfection, how a good theater can be adapted to movie screen!!- I think Gwyneth Paltrow made one of her greatest decisions accepting to play Catherine,maybe she has slowed down but this is a good proof of her acting ability that she has lost nothing from her performance while she was away...By the way, I want to say a few words to Anthony Hopkins' performance.
It wasn't bad,it was very good actually but I think his performance was so alike with his previous films..But generally, I liked the movie and the actors,plus-congratulations to John Madden for his great return....
Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the 27 year-old daughter of a recently deceased mathematician, played by Anthony Hopkins.
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.
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.
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.
Gwyneth Paltrow is a young woman trying to find out who she is in "Proof," a 2005 film also starring Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal and Hope Davis.
The film goes back and forth in time, keeping the audience wondering about the outcome of the story.The basic premise is that after Catherine's father dies, a student (Gyllenhaal) finds a notebook among his papers with a mind-bending, phenomenal mathematical proof.
As a further subplot, Catherine finds herself attracted to her father's student.Though this is a wonderful film that does not stray too far from the script, and the performances are wonderful, Catherine's announcement, which changes the entire story, comes in the play at the end of Act I and produced an audible gasp from the audience.
Hope Davis does a great job as Claire, the detached sister who tries a bit too hard and can never be on Catherine's wavelength; in fact, she seems to doubt Catherine's mental and emotional stability.Truly a lovely film and powerful in its own way.
Gwyneth Paltrow plays the daughter of a dead mathematician (Anthony Hopkins) who finds a groundbreaking mathematical proof in his office and claims it as her own.Math is something I really hate.
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.
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.
His younger daughter Catherine, played beautifully by Gwyneth Paltrow, put on hold of her life to take care of him.The movie flipped back and forth between before and after the passing of Robert as we see the toll it took on Catherine.
As the story develops, we may question ourselves whether the sacrifice of Catherine made her crazy, or whether the sacrifice worth it.I had no doubt before seeing the movie that the writing is great since the play, wrote by David Auburn who also co-written the film, won Pulitzer Prize.
It was the acting of the four main characters, particularly those moments between Anthony Hopkins and Gwenyth Paltrow, made the movie worked powerfully..
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.
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.
The film centers around Catherine ( Gwyneth Paltrow) as a young girl in her 20 who has inherited her fathers math brilliance as well as her father's possible mental illness ( the father played by Anthony Hopkins).
It also shows Catherine's struggle with trying to learn to trust her sister (the great Hope Davis) and her father's student ( Jake ) I really like this film.
See if you can spot any of your college math books in the bookshelf close-up in the movie.On a more subtle plane, you will get a feel about the mathematics in this love story in many other ways: a) when you are on-board with how mathematicians view how they "do work," and berate themselves for wasting time and not "doing work." b) on the fierce dichotomy between research in mathematics that seems to lead somewhere, versus research in mathematics that is ho-hum and dead-end, and the pressure to do the former while you are "young"; c) just how deep (read, "socially challenged") mathematicians get in an effort to be true to their discipline, and yet, "there's nothing wrong with you."!
The premise, mathematician Robert (Anthony Hopkins) and his caretaker daughter Catherine (Gweneth Paltrow) who also is an uncommonly bright 27-year-old mathematics mind and has spent the glowing years of her youth caring for her recently deceased father.
We were as disappointed after Secret Window (Johnny Depp) which tried to function in two dimensions and instead became a sorry imitation of a good story and a good movie.The plot elements are convoluted, the actors don't do a good job of portraying their emotions, and the ending is a disappointment.If you must see Proof, Hope Davis' role was outstanding as a cameo supporting actress.
In conclusion : only if you want to see Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins (even they are acting nothing), you have very much free time to lose and another person pays to go to this film..
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.
In this movie, Gwenyth Paltrow plays a woman who's existence as a person had minimal validation at best with a famous father, obsessed with his own work and a mother who we never meet except perhaps as an echo in the materialistic sister who arrives to "save" Gwenyths character.
He had a silly grin on his face the entire movie, which reminded me of that one line from The Terminator when Kyle said to Sarah Connor "What?..." except Jake had the look throughout.Gwyneth Paltrow was adequate, her strongest part being the Church scene where she talks about her Dad. That was the best scene.I love Anthony Hopkins, but sorry, I felt he sleep walked his way through this one, very comfortably, never stretched to really get in touch with this character.
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..
Catherine Llewellyn (Gwyneth Paltrow) is struggling to deal with the death of her genius math professor father Robert (Anthony Hopkins).
This film, while not for everyone has an intriguing story and Anthony Hopkins portrays mathematical professor Robert, whose daughter Catherine is now going through a period of worry that she will inherit her father's mental issues.
Jake Gyllenhall as Howard Dobbs, a graduate student who wants to help Catherine, but doesn't quite know how.Overall an interesting theme which will make you want to read the story, it is slow at times but a good subject matter and the performances are not overblown and exaggerated ("A Beautiful Mind" was a good film but assumes the audience has no clue as to how to interpret mental disturbances and disorders).Someday perhaps Hollywood will step into the 21st century and acknowledge brilliant people can also have emotional disorders without being "crazy".
The formula for this film is as follows: (1) capitalize on the John Nash-Russell Crowe success of A Brilliant Mind's theme of the mad mathematician (2) further capitalize on the controversy spurred by Harvard President Lawrence Summers when he speculated that one of the possible reasons why there are comparative less women in the highest levels of pure science might be related to innate capacity (3) Cast two still-appealing actors who may not be too expensive to hire because they are on their way down, namely an overweight Anthony Hopkins and oh-ever-so-inexpressive Gwyneth Paltrow (4) cast an actor on his way up but yet not too expensive (Jake Gyllenhaal) (5) hire a cheap scrip-writer (6) cast an Indian actor for the small role of a mathematics professor as India is known to have produce a fair share of mathematical geniuses (7)Do all the rest on the cheap.
This is the question that eats at Catherine throughout the story.Jake Gyllenhaal (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, 2005) plays Hal, the love interest, as well as a math student trying to come up with his own proof (i.e. mathematical breakthrough).
It felt real.As Catherine, Paltrow has been the caregiver to her mentally ill father, played by Anthony Hopkins, who in his past had been a brilliant mathematician.
What's interesting and easy to miss so early on are the quirks that these characters have: Catherine's sister likes to make lists; Catherine seems to say 'no' to absolutely everything, refusing to let people interfere even if it is for the good; Hal is someone who seemingly doesn't quit until he has support of other people and perhaps most tragically; Robert was a failed genius who died just as he seemed to strike gold.Like A Beautiful Mind, Proof attempts to explore that fine line that Hollywood seems to want us to believe is there between mathematical genius and mental illness.
Proof turned out to be a very good movie with excellent performances, as usual, by Paltrow and Hopkins.
Rounding out the cast are Anthony Hopkins as her father, Hope Davis as the "practical," list-making elder sister and Jake Gyllenhaal as a student of Hopkins who is given Paltrow's proof after a night of love-making and then doubts whether she could possibly have written it.
Add in the excellent Jake Gyllenhaal -Hal-(as the professor's student and as Paltrow's love interest) and an equally good Hope Davis -Claire- as the older sister, who might care but doesn't understand and cannot enter the world inhabited by Catherine and her father.The film is quite simple and therein lies its strength.
Hope Davis annoyed me to death as Catherine's (Paltrow) older sister, but her character is supposed to play the antagonistic role, so she was exactly on target in her performance.
Her collaboration with director John Madden here follows their success in working together on the 1998 film, "Shakespeare in Love." Catherine is an intellectually gifted but neurotic single woman, daughter of a brilliant, world class mathematician, Robert (Anthony Hopkins, in a minor role), a fictional character not unlike John Nash ("A Beautiful Mind").
Gwyneth Paltrow stars as the daughter haunted by following in the footsteps of her genius mathematician father (Anthony Hopkins) whom she cares for the years before his death while he went mad.