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Starring: Hope Davis,  Jake Gyllenhaal,  Gary Houston,  Gwyneth Paltrow,  Roshan Seth, 
Directed By: John Madden, 
Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Release Date: 2005
Studio: Miramax
Format: Closed-captioned,  Color,  Dolby,  DVD-Video,  Widescreen,  NTSC, 

Editorial Reviews and DVD Information

Product Description
Gwyneth Paltrow who won an Oscar for her performance in director John Madden's SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE teams up again with Madden in PROOF a poignant drama based on David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Paltrow lights up the screen as Catherine a young woman who has given up a seemingly bright future in order to take care of her ailing father Robert (Anthony Hopkins) a formerly brilliant mathematician who went crazy. After he dies Catherine's closed-off world is invaded by Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) a young mathematician who worshipped Robert and Claire (Hope Davis) her successful sister who fears that Catherine is too much like their father--a talented supremely intelligent person with severe mental problems. During the last years of his life Robert filled 103 notebooks with his writings but one of them written during a brief period of lucidity could turn the math world on its head while also threatening Catherine's already wavering sanity. Auburn co-wrote the screenplay with Rebecca Miller (PERSONAL VELOCITY THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE) taking it off the stage setting it in and around Chicago and breathing new life into the story along with Stephen Warbeck's compelling score and plenty of outstanding acting particularly by the glowing Paltrow and the earnest Gyllenhaal.System Requirements:Running Time 99 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 786936296303 Manufacturer No: 04136600

Amazon.com
Elegantly adapted from David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Proof works on so many levels that it shines like a perfected equation. Gwyneth Paltrow previously played her role onstage, and returns here as Catherine, the troubled 27-year-old daughter of Robert, a once-brilliant mathematician (Anthony Hopkins, appearing in flashbacks and imagined visions) who has recently died. What Robert has left behind is an emotionally challenging legacy of genius, mental illness, and unfinished business in the Chicago home where Catherine had cared for him during his erratic final years. Catherine fears she may have inherited her father's unstable condition, and her sister Claire (Hope Davis) arrives from New York with smothering concern and a selfish but well-meaning agenda, while Robert's student and assistant Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) hopes to find lasting proof of Robert's enduring genius in the piles of notebooks he left behind. Steeped in the authentic atmosphere of advanced academia, revelations of love, fear, regret, and potential recovery unfold with such graceful complexity that Proof plays like a thriller, with all the action taking place in the admirable hearts and minds of its characters. The film also has a lot to say about the potential tragedy of assuming mental illness where none exists, while leaving just enough doubt to keep you wondering -- a tribute to the exceptional performances of a first-rate cast, and particularly to Paltrow, whose reunion with Shakespeare in Love director John Madden proves equally rewarding for entirely different reasons. --Jeff Shannon

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Customer Reviews

A Beautiful Mind - Again
Adaptation of a play with little action, but some decent dialogue. Gwyneth Paltrow plays a crazy daughter of a crazy math genius. The 'proof' is a math term. I was entertained, but this is fairly forgettable stuff. The sister has some nice moments playing down to the crazy one. You won't laugh and you won't cry.

Just bad
If you are a mathematician, you will hate this movie -- nothing in it will remind you of the math world you know. Just think a minute: How many people in your math department look like Gwyneth Paltrow? Or even Jake Gyllenhaal? That should give you a hint to how realistic this movie is.

I found the movie so frustrating, I had to turn it off after about 20 minutes. Examples:

High-school-level conversation about insanity between two people who are both supposed to be exceptional mathematicians.

Ridiculous back-and-forth between Paltrow and Gyllenhaal where they keep changing attitudes and even personalities. I know it's based on a stage play, but couldn't they calm it down a bit for the screen?

Lazy screenplay shorthand for bossy woman: talking on cell phone about china patterns while walking through airport. Grrrr!

And finally, what made me shut it off: That insane conversation between Paltrow and Hope Davis, where one thinks the other is hallucinating for no apparent reason.

Spare me! Spare yourselves.

Great acting
Gwyneth Paltrow is great in Proof. She appears depressed, creative, brilliant, vulnerable, etc. as the genius-level daughter of a brilliant father. This is the best work I've ever seen her do. Better than Shakespeare in Love, the film that won her an Oscar. This role seems like it would be far harder to pull off than most, but Ms. Paltrow's performance is fluid, flawless, committed, and carries a subtle sense of humor throughout. Realistic and inspirational story.

Very good acting in a very bad cause...
The idea that mathematical genius is somehow strange or crazy
is very bad doctrine. People with power of innovation and original
thought are produced in the gene pool with regularity.
They are almost as likely to be found among the poor
as among the wealthy.
Much of the real advancement of civilizations has depended on them
braving misunderstanding and persecution to bring their ideas forward.
Contributing to their problems as this movie does,
even with the very good acting is not a good idea.
The Nash's of the world are seldom and very much not the "rule".

Proof
Proof is one of the best movies that I have ever seen. I missed seeing it when it was firt released. I have watched it many times on the Starz channel and then I finally bought it. The story is fascinating, the cast which largely consists of Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, and Jake Gyllenhaal is the best that one could hope for. I would hope that many people who are intelligent will see it if they haven't already done so.

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