A Few Words About A few words about... {Proof} (1 Viewer)

[JohnRice]

To address the last couple posts...

I think you're tending to overlook the real point. It seems maybe you are looking at the story too literally. It is highly symbolic. Plus, I actually like the idea of Catherine being somewhat unsure of herself. In reality, people are often unsure of even their own actions, plus Catherine was genuinely dealing with the fear that she was becoming delusional. She was not at all certain she hadn't actually imagined the whole thing. And, as has been stated, explaining the proof doesn't accomplish anything concrete.

 

[JohnRice]

With permission from HTF, I am posting my review of Proof. I like screen shots, but I don't think the board code lets me have the text wrap around them, so they will just be out there by themselves.

FWIW, I give it :star::star::star::star::star:



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In any given year you can look at a roster of the most praised films and you will generally see a lot of BIG. Big stories, big ideas, big budgets, big productions. Unfortunately, while that may drive impressive box office numbers, it seldom produces truly engrossing, thought provoking results. Grand, impressive topics constantly get the attention. It can be the story of a larger than life individual (Walk the Line & Ray), political and religious conflict (Munich), racial conflict (Crash), corporate greed (The Constant Gardener), sexual identity (Brokeback Mountain) or various other "substantial" subjects, but what is behind it isn't always that impressive once the dust has settled and some time to reflect has been taken. So, it is films like Proof which are almost completely overlooked and sadly misunderstood, even though, for my money, it is the best of 2005.

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Gwyneth Paltrow plays Catherine, a 27 year old woman who has spent the last five years taking sole responsibility of looking after her father Robert (Anthony Hopkins) who has recently died. During that time, Robert, who was a mathematician of historic genius, had descended into complete madness after over 20 years of instability. Catherine has now become a bit unstable herself, possibly because of her years looking after her father, or, as she fears, because she is following in his path, particularly since she is the same age he was when he became sick. To add a bit more to Catherine's stress, her overdriven, meticulous older sister Claire (Hope Davis) is arriving in the morning for their father's funeral. In the meantime, Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) one of Robert's former students, is looking through more than 100 notebooks Robert filled with mathematic proofs in his final years to see if there is anything approaching the significance of his earlier work.

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Eventually, Catherine gives Hal the key to a locked drawer in Robert's desk which holds a notebook with a 40 page mathematic proof which would seem to indicate that during one lucid year three years prior, Robert had done work of such significance that it dwarfed the work which had originally made him famous. The problem is, it's not clear Robert actually produced the proof. One thing is certain, who ever did produce it will go down in history as one of the greatest mathematic minds of all time.

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So, what is so engrossing about a movie dealing with the authorship of a 40 page mathematic proof? The brilliance lies in the fact that it is not really about what it seems to be about on the surface. After all, the proof itself does not appear until the movie is half over, so maybe there is just a slight chance that is not really what the story is about. Instead, Proof is a drama of the most pure variety, not the mystery or "Thriller" it is sometimes dubbed to be. It is a character study of four people, all with significantly different personalities, a rumination on the characteristics of creativity and genius, and a quiet examination of what motivates people during both ordinary and extraordinary situations. It is also among a small group of the greatest screenplays to appear this decade, including Talk to Her, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the best of them all, Far from Heaven.

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Several peripheral characters are included in the story, but the true focus comes down to the four major ones. Robert is shown the least, and thankfully, he is not portrayed as a raving genius, storming through the house, terrorizing his daughter, as most movies would choose to do. Most of the time he is calm and thoughtful, for reasons explained in the opening scene. Hal is a 26 year old Mathematics Professor who is able to admire Robert's genius and deal with his insanity, but is obviously never going to match his skills. Claire is the older sister who covers up the insecurities she and Catherine share by being overbearing and displaying a remarkable skill for brushing off anything bothersome.

In the end, the story revolves around Catherine, who is portrayed in a wonderful performance by Paltrow. The answer to what is really going on with Catherine is where the meat of the story resides. Is she simply feeble, as Claire seems so anxious to believe? Is she suffering the consequences of taking care of her father for the last five years? Most likely, different viewers will each arrive at their own, differing conclusions, but rest assured, Proof is a story which will leave active viewers considering the many different possibilities for days to come. The story is quite simple on the surface, but appearances are definitely deceptive. This is not a literal bit of story telling, but a grand allegory wrapped up in 4 characters and brilliant writing. It should come as no surprise that Proof began as a Pulitzer winning play and a Tony winning stage drama on Broadway, with Paltrow playing the lead character in the London production, since it has "Stage Drama" written all over it. Unfortunately, the movie version was usurped by the apparent selfishness and greed of producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who were in the process of leaving their production company, Miramax, as Proof was supposed to be coming to theaters. In their zeal to see that Miramax distributor Walt Disney didn't profit unduly from their work, they effectively buried it in a marketing fiasco and it has gone almost completely unnoticed.

Comparisons between Proof and A Beautiful Mind (Russell Crowe) are natural, but the two films are quite different. A Beautiful Mind is the type of literal storytelling that is far more common in movies, where Proof is anything but literal. With one, the story begins and ends with what is shown on the screen. With the other, virtually everything is symbolic of something else. It may require more work from the viewer, but the effort is well worth it.

 

[Robert Harris]

Beautifully said, John.

RAH

 

[JohnRice]

Thank you.

You just made my day.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Having finally caught up with this film on disc, I want to bounce this thread back to the top in the hope of getting more readers for JohnRice's review (and RAH's comments).

I saw the play in its original off-B'way venue with M-L Parker, and this film is as elegant a translation from stage to screen as any I can think of. The essential action and narrative remain, but the result never once feels stagebound. Credit is due to playwright David Auburn, who adapted his work for the screen with the help of Rebecca Miller (herself a director), and to John Madden's understated direction.

Even without the Miramax/Disney issues, I'm not sure how successfully this film could have been marketed. It has become increasingly difficult to sell the moviegoing public on "modest" dramas, even with A-list casts. But at least we have a well-done DVD.

John, I can confirm that the "reveal" you were asking about occurs at the exact same point in the movie and the play. I went into the play knowing nothing about it, and I remember being floored by that one, which, if anything, has more impact when there are live actors in front of you on a stage.

M.

 

[JohnRice]

It's funny. I know what you mean about it being modest and that an awful lot of people would watch it, shrug their shoulders and go on, but when I watch a movie like this, it's like the earth shakes. The consequences of it are incredible.

 

[Bob Cashill]

I saw the off-Bway production and, now, the film. I liked both, but didn't love either. At one point during the film my sister turned to me and said, "There's a lot of yelling in this"...and, you know, come to think of it, there was, much more so than I think in the play. Is my recollection correct? The stage actors (Parker, Ben Shenkman, Larry Brygmann) just seemed to convey everything a little more subtly than the film cast, not that one is necessarily "better" than the other.

 

[Michael Reuben]

That's an interesting comment. I don't recall any yelling in the play, but then I also didn't think there was much in the film. I'd certainly agree that Paltrow's portrayal of Kathy was somewhat more strident and outwardly expressive than Mary-Louise Parker's, but I'd chalk that up to different interpretations of the character. Still, the scenes between Kathy and her father are all very quiet, except when he's starting to rave -- and in those scenes Paltrow conveys all the emotion with her expressions and body language, not her voice.

If there's one area where the film amps up the volume over the stage production I saw, I'd say it was Jake Gyllenhaal's performance. Ben Shenkman was a more believable math nerd (it's a role that fits well within his narrow range), but Gyllenhaal infused the character with a little passion, which I thought was an improvement.

John, I knew you'd appreciate why I put "modest" in quotes.

M.

 

[Bob Cashill]

I think it was the exchanges between Paltrow and Hope Davis that seemed higher-decibel to my ears. [And, not to redirect the conversation, but I thought Shenkman was just fine in HBO's ANGELS IN AMERICA.]

 

[JohnRice]

Something is definitely screwy with the forum. There has been one new post, which I received six copies of by email, and now it's not actually in the thread.

Database problems I guess.

 

[JohnRice]

Another post was made that doesn't show up.

But mine show up. What on earth is going on here?

 

[JohnRice]

That's right folks. Nobody but I can post in HTF.


Oh, feel the power.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I wanted to post this over the weekend, but the database problems prevented me.

Shenkman is always "just fine", never more. But we digress.

M.

 

[Matt Leigh]

This movie simply doesn't work for me at all.


If the point of the Gweneth character is for the audience to wonder if she is slowly going crazy or not it doesn't work. Besides seeing her father, who recently died she does nothing to lead us to believe her internal madness. For all the audience is concerned she is simply talking to air and making up his responses in her head as if playing out a likely scenario driven by routine. Beside being belegerent to Jake's character and both being pushed around by her sister she doesn't seem crazy at all.

Her father's supposed lucid period was never lucid. The audience hopes it was and when it first seems to begin we have an extended dialouge sequence outside in the snow where the proof of his lucidity is never guaranteed. As the audience we don't buy that he is sane and we don't buy that he isn't. We're left hanging artificially in soap opera style dialouge that circles the point instead of hitting it.

In a crappy reveal much later we find out that what we had no other reason to believe is true. He was always crazy and was simply writing nonsense. To make this work we need some kind of REAL sanity bleeding through in the character. It appears in a single moment when the two are on the couch watching a movie and eating popcorn but it isn't enough.

At the end of the film all we really know for sure is what Gweneth remembers in flashback. There is nothing else in the story to lead us to believe otherwise. If the demanding sister or the infatuated math whiz are supposed to have any bearing on the audience as to the sanity of Gweneth or what we have been told by and through her the story and their characterizations fail terribly in delivering it.

The simple fact is is that if she remembers all of this and we have no other information supplied by the plot to go on then we have accept it as being true. If it is that clear in her mind we can safely tell she was never crazy, her father never had a lucid period and instead the supposed lucid period was used as a way for Gweneth to maintain the reputation of her father. She wrote the proof and locked it away in her fathers drawer to either make him feel good about himself if ever he found it, believing it to be his, or after his death to do what the supposed lucid period was to achieve.

 

[JohnRice]

It is often astounding how a cold, analytical view of some things comes away as being completely pointless.

 

[Haggai]

Finally saw this movie over the weekend, a long time coming, since I'm a math Ph.d. myself, though I don't work in the area anymore. I liked it a lot, the principals are all very good in their roles.

Most of the math-related dialogue is quite good, especially in the last scene where she expresses doubts about the proof being "stitched together and lumpy," as opposed to her dad's work, which was "much more elegant." The idea of a largely home-taught mathematician coming up with a major proof like that is naturally a bit of a stretch to begin with, but that explanation (plus a few other things throughout the script) gives it some credibility. The idea is that she might have been able to find some previously unseen connections that other professionals hadn't really investigated yet, probably because the ideas involved would seem messy and unnaturally combined to people in the know, who would be inclined to conclude that they were wasting their time and should try some other approach. And, of course, all mathematicians will recognize the dramatic device of the "eureka" moment of finding the key idea during a moment of mundane non-mathematical thinking--it was pretty well done in this movie, with her stopping in mid-motion as she reached for the mayonnaise in the fridge.

A small role that was well cast was her professor at Northwestern, played by the familiar Roshan Seth. It was nice to get a non-American presence in the mix, as most math departments in the US have a significant foreign contingent among their faculty and stuff, around 50% in a lot of places, if not higher. Seth always has an air of intelligence in the roles I've seen him in, so he establishes instant credibility as a professor, which is important because he basically has just the one scene with her in his office. I was a little confused, though, about whether she was supposed to be taking graduate level courses at the Northwestern math department. The brief shot of her work that she's doing for his class appears to be at an undergrad level (naturally, an irrepressibly geeky math person like me has to pay close attention to stuff like that). But at least the problems she was working on for that homework assignment were in the correct area of math, according to the dialogue about which class she was taking.

 

[Bob Cashill]

It's just nice seeing NU, my alma mater, in a film. [NOTHING IN COMMON is another.] But I never got near the math department.

 

[Haggai]

Continuing with a completely trivial detail that surely no one besides me would care about...one of the deleted scenes on the DVD seems to confirm that she's taking undergrad classes at Northwestern, not graduate classes. There's a short scene they cut out of her talking with some other students in what seems to be their dorm's cafeteria/dining commons.

 

[JohnRice]

Of course, she would only be eligible for undergrad classes, no matter her actual level.

 

[Haggai]

Her circumstances and her dad's influence, which he mentions once, might have been used as a basis for her being able to take some grad-level classes (I did when I was an undergrad), although you're probably right that it would have been too much of a stretch for the script to have her enrolled in a full-time graduate program.