Themes: Tortured Genius, Mental Illness, Fathers and Daughters
Main Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hope Davis, Anthony Hopkins
Release Year: 2005
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
A woman struggles to come to terms with the potentially dangerous legacy of her late father in this drama based on the award-winning stage play by David Auburn. Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a woman in her late twenties who is strongly devoted to her father, Robert (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant and well-known mathematician. While Robert's skill in the world of numbers still appears to be strong, his grip on reality begins to slip away, and as Robert descends into madness, Catherine begins to wonder if she may have inherited her father's mental illness along with his mathematical genius. After Robert's passing, Catherine is confronted by Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a gifted but zealous student of Robert's who wants to look through the late man's notes in hopes of finding his last great work. While Catherine is hesitant to look too deeply into her father's work for fear of what it might suggest about her own future, she allows Hal to do so, and when one notebook reveals a mathematical proof of potentially historic proportions, it sets off shock waves in more ways than one. Proof also stars Hope Davis as Catherine's well-meaning but shallow sister, who doubts Catherine's ability to take care of herself. Paltrow had previously played Catherine to stellar reviews during the original play's run in London's West End. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
John Madden's adaptation of David Auburn's award-wining Proof retains much of the work's outstanding dialogue. There is a lack of emotional immediacy to the film, but that has more to do with the characters being from a highly academic world. These are people who are always attempting to be exact and clear, and much of the drama of Gwyneth Paltrow's character -- a part she played on stage in London -- comes simply from the fact that she does not want to face in clear and exact terms what she is feeling. The trick to the presenting this material is maintaining the balance between the characters. The audience has to constantly wonder which of these characters they can believe. Madden does a fine job of keeping this element of the play in tact, even if Jake Gyllenhaal's Hal tips the scale by being played a bit too nice. Madden also does not "open up" the play so much as go deeper into it. He does a fine job editing the film in order to reveal information in ways one is unable to on the stage. This is a fine film with solid performances. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
Roshan Seth - Prof. Bhandari; Gary Houston - Prof. Jay Barrow
Credit
Keith Slote - Art Director, Charmian Adams - Supervising Art Director, Kerry Barden - Casting, Billy Hopkins - Casting, Suzanne Smith - Casting, Michelle Guish - Casting, Mark Cooper - Co-producer, Jill Taylor - Costume Designer, Deborah Saban - First Assistant Director, John Madden - Director, Mick Audsley - Editor, Bob Weinstein - Executive Producer, James D. Stern - Executive Producer, Julie Goldstein - Executive Producer, Stephen Warbeck - Composer (Music Score), Alice Normington - Production Designer, Alwin Küchler - Cinematographer, Alison Owen - Producer, John Hart - Producer, Jeff Sharp - Producer, Robert Kessel - Producer, Peter Lindsay - Sound/Sound Designer, Rebecca Miller - Screenwriter, David Auburn - Screenwriter, Richard S. Lederer - Second Unit Assistant Director, Barbara Herman-Skelding - Set Decorator, Michael Hogan - Co-Executive Producer, David Auburn - Play Author
A former student (Jake Gyllenhaal) of a recently deceased, brilliant mathematician (Anthony Hopkins) sleeps with the mathematician's daughter Catherine who has been caring for her ill father. She gives him a key, and he finds a notebook containing a proof of an important theorem which Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) claims is hers. The ensuing dispute is complicated by the arrival of Catherine's sister from New York and signs of inherited mental illness.
Proof is a four-character play on the stage. The film adds many bit parts for the sake of realism, and "opens up" the setting considerably. The role of Catherine was first played by Mary-Louise Parker in the play's 2000Manhattan Theatre Club original production. Gwyneth Paltrow played Catherine in a London stage production before being cast in the film.
Hopkins' character is a mathematics professor at the University of Chicago. Although many scenes were filmed on the university's campus, the mathematics building itself (Eckhart) was not used. Instead, many scenes that were supposed to be in the math building were shot in the Divinity School. The film opens with a pan of Gwyneth Paltrow's character bicycling across the Midway Plaisance and shows many scenes in the quadrangle before Harper Library.
Awards
Gwyneth Paltrow was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama for Proof, but lost to Felicity Huffman.
