Proof
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Movie Reviews of Proof
Movie Review: Math problem is the prison - is the proof the way out?
Summary: 4 Stars
Gwyneth Paltrow is Catherine, a young mathematician who is the daughter of Robert, a legendary mathematician ruined by mental illness and played by Anthony Hopkins. The lives of mathematicians revolve around their ability to craft coherent answers, or proofs for elaborate mathematical questions. Few mathematicians successfully and single-handedly arrive at a significant proof in their careers and, as "Proof" suggests, most mathematicians hit their peak in their mid-twenties. Robert managed the first hurdle, but as to the second - his life degenerated into an existence trapped in a house of math books and notebooks riddled with incomprehensible figures. Catherine, having dropped out of school to care for her father, already wonders if she's destined to suffer the same life of mental illness as her father. She "loses" time, and endures spates of depression that keep her bedridden for days. However, when she's up and about, her sometimes lucid father engages her in number games, and urges her to work on proofs while out of school - he himself suddenly feels competent enough to work out a new proof, one which will compensate for years wasted looking for alien messages in Dewey-Decimal codes at the local library. Mathematics is both home and prison for all mathematicians - it's absorbing, and those steeped in its ways find themselves undone trying to rely on it to explore and explain their reality. And when a possibly groundbreaking proof is found in one of Robert's many notebooks the script turns into a battle of wills between Catherine who claims to have written it, and Claire who thinks that Catherine is using the proof to hold onto a bleak existence in Chicago where she will follow her father's path into madness.
Robert is already dead when "Proof" starts, and we only meet him in flashbacks that hint at both his and his daughter's sanity. In the "present", in the aftermath of Robert's death, Catherine must deal with Harold "Hal" Dobbs (Gylenhaal), a young mathematician who may represent Robert's opposite - sane but also mediocre. Hal loves her, or maybe he's in love with being the boyfriend of the daughter of a legendary mathematician, and he's obsessed with finding the shreds of a master-proof buried in hundreds of notebook pages of scribbles. Then there's Claire (Hope Davis), Catherine's older sister, an established financial analyst in Manhattan (the story is set in Chicago). One of the best scenes in the flick (and easily the funniest in what's not quite a laugh-riot movie) is the first meeting of Hal & Claire. Already beginning to suspect that Catherine is well on the road to emotional instability, Claire drills Catherine on details about Hal - always referring to him by his full name, as if he were a delusion of Catherine and needed first and last name to ground him in reality. In the next scene - driving up to Catherine's and finding Hal already there, Claire points at him with angry vindication - "Harold - Briggs!!". (The script slyly suggests that Claire may be at least as insane as her father, but found in her job and home an existence that accommodates her mental state.) When the disputed "proof" is first found, Harold becomes the battleground between Claire and Catherine - the older sister convinced that their father found lucidity before his death to author a last heuristic hurrah.
This was a great film, though largely on its performances - the story itself seems unfinished, with a too-pat ending. I never thought much of Gylenhaal, though he's incredibly mature if befuddled by Catherine (if you didn't like "The Good Girl" because of him, he's still great here). The deft script makes him a cutting composite of a man who genuinely feels for Catherine while also being exactly what Catherine hates about mathematicians - geeks who hit their peak early and spend the rest of their lives bragging about conferences they attend, playing in horrible rock bands, poking holes in the proofs of others and paving the way for the next generation of mathematicians. Hope Davis makes the most out of Catherine's extremely unlikable sister, in a script that has little patience for her. The movie of course belongs to Paltrow who seems to be both fighting a losing battle for sanity and fighting off those who might try to rescue her from it - it's her least "Hollywood" performance, prickly and unfriendly yet oddly beguiling. Catherine has already learned that math is a prison, but spends the rest of the story trying to find something other than the disputed proof to save her from that cell.
Movie Review: "There's nothing wrong with you Katherine!"
Summary: 4 Stars
Proof is all about the urge to reach out to someone, the painful fragility of both creativity and personal relationships, and the unnerving propinquity of madness and genius. It's a stagey and talky film, that offers up some excellent performances from its lead cast, and gives them some terrific opportunities to indulge of unabashed histrionics, but too often the film feels strained by its propensity towards fussiness, earnestness, and self-importance.
The film begins on a rainy night in Chicago in the home of Robert (Anthony Hopkins). Robert is a groundbreaking mathematician, a prodigy who made major contributions to three fields and revolutionized one of them twice before he was twenty-two. His unstable 27-year-old daughter Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) now inhabits the house and as she sits absent-mindedly changing the channels on the TV, Robert comes in and engages her in conversation about her forlorn state.
From the moment Robert opens his mouth, something is not right, and in fact it's immediately revealed that Robert has just died, setting the film's plot in motion. Catherine is soon visited by her New York-based yuppie sister Claire (Hope Davis), who begins to take over he life, but also visiting is Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a young protégé of Robert's who has become a professor in his own right.
Soon we learn that Robert's mind was devoured by dementia; Catherine who is afraid of following in the footsteps of her father is certain that she'll inherit the mental illness that laid him low. Robert was not just a genius; he also was someone who increasingly went in and out of sanity. He'd had lucid periods, one lasting a full nine months, but the last three years had been marked by bouts of madness that included filling 103 notebooks with compulsive writing.
Haunted by her father's past, Catherine becomes increasingly paranoid - she begins to believe that Hal may be using her to gain access to a new proof, whilst she also comes to the recognition that her controlling sister Claire is fully prepared to sell the house and move her back to New York for "treatment."
The Proof of the title means two things: the specific mathematical proof that either Catherine or her father may have written, as well as the human need to offer proof, to demonstrate to others our value, our worth, the truth of our talents and the sincerity of our emotions. Mr. Madden and Ms. Paltrow do a fine job of bringing these urges to life; and they do an even better job of dramatizing the internal barriers Catherine must break before claiming her life as her own.
Depressed and inert, prone to long-winded episodes of conversing with her dead father, Catherine is convinced she'll spiral down if she accepts her own considerable mathematical talents. Clare sees her as a discomfited, somber, and wary woman with few social graces and multiple hard edges. And although Claire might come off to somewhat of a b*tch, she really does have her younger sister's best interests at heart. Both her and Hal, each for their own reasons, desperately wants to help Catherine regain her footing.
Brilliant acting aside, the film's stage-bound qualities seem problematic, with director John Madden's tendency makes the characters and the story feel unduly predictable. It doesn't help that the overall conceit of the plot - the discovery of who really wrote "the proof" gets tied up in circles; did Catherine write it or didn't she? With this section of the movie just going on a little too long. Overall though, the film is largely successful, perhaps due to Madden's and Ms. Paltrow's obvious familiarity with the material - both help increase the film's intensity to the point it trumps the underlying earnestness.
But the best thing about Proof is Gwyneth Paltrow's formidable performance as Catherine. When she unleashes her emotional range and carries Catherine's internal conflicts on her face and in her body language, she shows why she remains an actress now capable of taking on any role. Her performance is so psychologically naked, her on-screen uncertainty and insecurity so piercing, that the raw pain at the core of this story never fades from view; hers is a performance that redeems everything else about this film. Mike Leonard February 06.
Movie Review: There is proof and then there is proof
Summary: 4 Stars
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are several definitions of the word "proof" that apply to the movie of the same name adapted from the David Auburn play. The etymology of the word can be traced back to the Latin "probare," meaning, "to prove." Both parts of the first definition of "proof" as a noun come into play: "(a) the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact; (b) the process or an instance of establishing the validity of a statement especially by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning." But there is also another meaning of proofs that is relevant to the story, which in the field of mathematics, where a proof is a demonstration that, assuming certain axioms, some statement is necessarily true.
Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the daughter of a Robert (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant mathematician who has recently died. Robert made two enormous contributions to the field when he was in his early 20s and then got "sick," a euphemism by which his family and friends referred to his schizophrenia when they were not coming right out and saying the man went mad. Catherine followed in her father's footsteps, studying mathematics, albeit at a different university, and she is worried that maybe she is like him in having mental problems as well. After all, her father is dead and she is still having conversations with him. But she has more immediate concerns because now that Robert is dead, the vultures are circling down.
There is Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), who was Robert's student and has taken it upon himself to go throw the dozens of notebooks in which he scribbled mathematical formulas and insane ramblings. Catherine suspects Hal is looking for something that he can steal as his own to make his own reputation, and hitting on her does not make her think much more of him. Claire (Hope Davis), her sister comes in from out of town, sells their father's house from under Catherine, whom she seems convinced, is having mental problems. Then Catherine gives Hal a notebook, and in the notebook there is a proof (of the mathematical sort).
The proof appears to be brilliant, but that, of course, has to be proven. But then Catherine claims that she and not Robert is the author of the proof. Both Hal and Claire find this hard to believe, and on some level Catherine has doubts as well. Is she a brilliant mathematician like her father, trying to attain a validation now that she never received before, or is she simply schizophrenic? More importantly, what would constitute sufficient proof to prove any or all of the above?
I have not had a math class since I was a freshman in high school when I took geometry, so I have no clue what the math geeks in this movie are talking about, but that is okay because it is the idea of the proof and not the proof itself that matters in "Proof." But when I stopped taking math courses I started participating in debate, so I know something about the fine art (if not science) of argument and how to prove things. The irony here is that neither Hal nor Claire, nor Catherine for that matter, seek any proof. They all make assumptions and the only relevant evidence has to do with penmanship. This leads to the question of what sort of proof we would be willing to accept, but director John Madden is not leaving that to chance.
"Proof" will appeal to those who are interested in the fine line between genius and madness, even if that idea is becoming overly related to the field of mathematics in movies of late. Paltrow's character is at the heart of the story and virtually every scene is between her and the other characters. Hopkin's character goes from lucidity to ravings, but what matters is how Paltrow reacts to him, because they constitute the key proof as to her emotional state and mathematical abilities. Jake Gyllenhaal's character goes with whichever way the wind is blowing, but it is Davis who's compassion and concern for her Catherine is chilling, so there was a strong sense in how I wanted Claire to be wrong more than I wanted Catharine to be right.
Movie Review: Genius or Madness?
Summary: 4 Stars
I had a psychiatry professor in medical school who advised us about recognizing depression in our patients. "If you start to feel depressed being around them, then they probably have depression", we were told. A different psychiatry professor gave us a lecture on the sometimes grey area that exists between "genius" and mental illness. For example, he proposed, if modern miracle anti-depressant medications like Prozac were available, would you have treated Van Gogh - preventing him from disfiguring and ultimately killing himself, IF you knew that by treating his "illness" you might also be depriving him (and the world) of his "genius".
That is a good question that has no definitive answer. This film explores that nebulous area `twixt genius and madness. It also looks at relationships, trust and "love" between father and daughter, between sisters and between lovers. The reason I began this review discussing how it can make you feel depressed being in the company of depressed people is that watching this movie made me feel a little depressed.
Gwyneth Paltrow stars in David Auburn's script, adapted from his play, as Anthony Hopkins' daughter, Catherine. Hopkins' Robert was a math genius, twice making "life-time achievement" kind of discoveries in the field before age 27, at which time he began to become ill with a mental illness that caused him to deteriorate until his death many years later. Much of the film is told in flashback. Catherine took care of Robert for his last half-decade. Did she do it out of daughterly duty? Did she do it to be near her father's mathematical genius as she was working out her own mathematical proofs? Did she do it to avoid moving forward with her own life and academic career? The film suggests perhaps all three, and leaves the viewer to your own conclusions. Jake Gyllenhaal portrays Hal, one of Robert's graduate students, smart enough to understand the high world of mathematic academics, but not quite genius enough to make the kind of revolutionary breakthroughs that make you legend. After Robert passes away Hal asks permission to read through Robert's copious notebooks where he scribbled down page after page of gibberish, hoping that a spark of genius will appear amid the mad scribbling. Hope Davis appears as Robert's other daughter, Claire. Although Catherine may have inherited some of Dad's genius, Claire is the one who seems to have her life in more order - for the kind of folks who think lives should be orderly. Claire flies into town for Robert's funeral as well, hoping to interject some order into Catherine's life.
The film does not delve into deeper mathematics. Rudimentary arithmetic is not required to view "Proof". The movie looks at the lives of these people and presents the characters "as is". We see that Hal also plays drum in an alternative rock band made up of math grad students. One of their pieces is called "I" after the imaginary number that equals negative one when squared - this song consists of the band standing silently on stage after telling the audience the name of the song. If you're the kind of person who might find such things entertaining - this may be the film for you.
The storyline concentrates on Catherine and explores whether or not she may have inherited her father's genius, or his madness, or both. Although the film is filled with the fine acting you'd expect from a collection of Academy Award winners and nominees, it was not the most pleasant thing for me to watch.
Movie Review: Solve for X and Y when X+Y = (1 large pizza + 2 toppings) / extra cheese
Summary: 4 Stars
PROOF proves two things that I've always thought obvious. Theoretical mathematicians can attain fame but not riches, and, unless they jam in a rock band in their spare time, are unlikely to find sexual partners.
As the film opens, renowned math professor Robert (Anthony Hopkins) has just recently died of a ruptured aneurysm, leaving his daughter Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) alone in their rambling Chicago house. The funeral is to be the next day, for which Catherine's estranged sister Claire (Hope Davis) is flying in from New York City. Also intermittently present is Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), one of Robert's former students and now a mathematician in his own right, who, when not casting smoldering looks of longing at Catherine, is going through 113 of his mentor's handwritten notebooks looking for mathematical insights of genius worth publishing. The thing is, Robert had been "insane" for a good part of the last several years, and those notebooks contain nothing but gibberish.
This film is as good as it is because of the exceptional performance of Paltrow, perhaps the best of her career, and which should be worth an Oscar nomination. Forget the romantic comedy fluff she's appeared in previously. Gyllenhaal, Davis, and Hopkins are also strong in supporting roles, but the viewer may not notice.
The obvious conflict is between Catherine, emotionally battered from years as her father's sole care giver while trying to complete her own math studies at Northwestern, and the perky and obnoxious Claire, who's been off in the Big Apple leading a real life. Then, things heat up when Catherine shares with Hal a notebook squirreled away in Dad's old desk - a notebook that apparently contains a long-sought mathematical proof that would, if validated, turn the discipline on its collective ear. Hal first believes the proof was authored by Robert because it appears to be in his handwriting. Then Catherine claims that the astounding find was her doing. Unless true authorship can be determined, getting it published will be problematic.
Compared to the undoubted power of Paltrow's dramatic performance, I thought the plot relatively weak. (Perhaps it's because differential calculus caused me to flame out and crash as a college frosh decades ago.) Robert's mental malady is unconvincing because the audience never really discovers what ails him, and he actually seems pretty normal in most of the flashbacks in which he appears. But weakest was the issue of the proof's questionable authorship. Well before the film's conclusion, the audience knows who really wrote it; Hal strongly suspects, but still can't see a way to prove it. OK then, why not just have the pages of the notebook dusted for fingerprints? The true author would have left them in droves to the exclusion of the other candidate. Hal needs to get out more.
As fine a film as this is, tossing out the distractions of Hal and The Proof could have made it a leaner and meaner story of sibling conflict, albeit less of an offbeat love story.