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PROOF
By DAVID ROONEY
Variety, 8/29/05
 Constructed
with the artful mathematical precision that dances through the unstable
but gifted minds of its father-and-daughter protagonists, David
Auburn's "Proof" -- perhaps inevitably -- was more beguiling
and intimate on stage than on screen. But despite less-than-ideal
casting of the male roles, and a tendency to soften the Pulitzer
Prize-winning work's thorny humor with a more sober tone, director
John Madden has woven together an elegant, intelligent drama of
a breed increasingly rare in mainstream American movies. Whether
or not a significant audience exists for it will depend greatly
on awards season attention, likely to center on femme stars Gwyneth
Paltrow and Hope Davis (shown above).
Those unfamiliar with Auburn's 2000 play will draw comparisons with
"A Beautiful Mind," which shares a focus on the fine line
separating madness from genius as illustrated in a mathematician
-- in this case two. However, "Proof" is a far more subtle
exploration of similar issues, without the biopic backbone or the
sentimental payoff of the Ron Howard film and therefore without
the easy audience hook.
But in the troubled character of Catherine -- played previously
by Paltrow on the London stage in a Donmar production also directed
by Madden -- it has a complex and hauntedly magnetic central figure.
The 27-year-old daughter of groundbreaking mathematician Robert
(Anthony Hopkins), who slid into dementia long before his death,
Catherine feels the brooding shadow of her own tenuous sanity as
she prepares for her father's funeral. Intrusions into her depressive
cocoon come via Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a former student of her father's,
now teaching math at the University of Chicago, and her sister Claire
(Davis), who breezes in from New York, proffering coffee, bagels
and jojoba conditioner as pick-me-ups.
Hal insists on combing through Catherine's father's hundreds of
notebooks in the hope of finding lucid work amid the disjointed
graphomaniacal scribblings. He also persists in trying to get closer
to the borderline paranoid woman.
Catherine lets down her guard when they sleep together after a post-funeral
party. She hands Hal the key to a desk drawer where a notebook is
hidden containing a proof of a mathematical theorem that could prove
a revolutionary discovery.
Creating the illusion of a far weightier drama, Auburn's sleight
of hand was particularly deft onstage in regard to the play's two
chief revelations: the first, that Catherine's conversations with
her father are in reality with his ghost; and the second concerning
the author of the proof. Those plot points lack the element of surprise
in the film that the theatrical bracketing of a scene change can
heighten.
Mostly, the play makes only slender gains by being opened up. Daniel
Sullivan's original production unfolded entirely on the ample porch
of the family's house. Madden keeps much of the action there; excursions
to the college campus or a department store add little beyond the
visual depth of Alwin Kuchler's sleek and graceful widescreen lensing.
One of the more successful elaborations is Catherine's speech at
the funeral. Despite its forays into the arcane world of mathematics,
this is a family drama and it works best when rooted in the rundown
home that Claire wants to sell out from under Catherine.
Questionable choices in the casting of Robert and Hal somewhat dull
the balance of this four-character piece. Making Robert British
to accommodate Hopkins was fine, but it's a bland characterization,
too indistinguishable from his other muted, unsatisfying turn as
an academic in "The Human Stain." Only in his final scene,
in which anger deflates into the realization that his perceived
productivity is in fact inane rambling, do we really feel something
for Hopkins' Robert.
Gyllenhaal achieves a good balance of sensitivity with a possible
opportunistic agenda, while also revealing the dulled awareness
of a guy who knows he's not quite talented enough to dazzle in his
chosen field. But hunky Gyllenhaal is probably no one's idea of
a math nerd; his excitement at being part of a possible breakthrough
mathematical discovery never quite sits right on the physically
confident actor's handsome, puppyish features.
Likewise, actually seeing the band in which he and his math cohorts
play and making them a relatively cool ensemble kind of kills the
joke of party-animal theoreticians.
Paltrow is entirely persuasive in a vulnerable performance low on
vanity or showy moments. She makes Catherine's sorrow, her resentment
and her fear of being her father's daughter a vivid, destabilizing
force. Her crushed realization that her trust in Hal has been misplaced,
and then her slow reckoning that the same realization may also be
unfounded, are played with insight and economy.
The film's shift to a more somber tone from the play may be partly
the influence of Auburn's co-screenwriter Rebecca Miller, as perhaps
is the underscoring of Catherine as a woman almost numbed into complacency
by the unlikelihood of achieving recognition in the boys' club of
math.
One notable improvement in the screenplay is the amplified sense
that Catherine perceives her own mathematical work as a potential
source of shame to her incapacitated father, bringing clarity to
some of her more self-sacrificial behavior.
Claire is a role that easily could be unsympathetic and one-dimensional,
but the always wonderful Davis softens her intrusiveness with genuine
concern for her sister, and with a touching understatement in conveying
her awareness that the exceptional talents in the family gene pool
went elsewhere.
Madden's melancholy handle on the material is echoed in Stephen
Warbeck's lovely, if somewhat overused score. Better in its gentle
introspective moments than its sentimental ones, the composer's
work often takes on the urgent, obsessive mood of Philip Glass music,
which represents an apt sonic accompaniment to the ticking of the
tormented mathematical minds at the drama's center.
A Miramax Films release presented in association
with Endgame Entertainment of a Hart Sharp Entertainment production.
Produced by Jeffrey Sharp, John N. Hart Jr., Robert Kessel, Alison
Owen. Executive producers, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Julie
Goldstein, James D. Stern. Co-producer, Mark Cooper. Co-executive
producer, Michael Hogan.
Directed by John Madden. Screenplay, David
Auburn, Rebecca Miller, based on Auburn's play.
Catherine - Gwyneth Paltrow
Robert - Anthony Hopkins
Hal - Jake Gyllenhaal
Claire - Hope Davis
Prof. Jay Barrow - Gary Houston
Prof. Bhandari - Roshan Seth |
