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Proof After starring on London's West End, getting married to a rock star (OK, a schmaltz rock star for those who hate Coldplay), having a baby and giving her a name that would guarantee lunchtime hazing and torture in any public school in America, Gwyneth is BACK! Proof was supposed to be her big coming out party last fall, but Miramax, like it has with so many films over the past year, delayed it until September 2005. Was it worth the wait? Paltrow stars as Catherine - the daughter of a brilliant mathematician, Robert (Anthony Hopkins), who has been pushed to the edge after nursing her father while his mental health deteriorates over the course of 3 years. Now, days after his death, she is left with a house full of his notebooks, and one of his young students, Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), wishes to go through each and everyone to see if he can discover some lost mathematical proof left behind by the once great man. As Catherine deals with her grief, questions about her own sanity, and a growing relationship with Hal, her sister, Claire (Hope Davis), shows up from New York with the intent to "fix" everything. Is Catherine going crazy? Did Robert leave behind something special? Proof is a very emotional and engaging movie almost all the way through, but it loses it at the end. Director John Madden does a wonderful job with the constant flashback structure that keeps the audience moving back and forth from current time to the past so we can see the events, conversations and actions that have brought Catherine to where she is today. It does make for a challenging narrative, but nothing more than the typical drama fan can handle. Of course, he also finds a way to make a movie focused on people writing in notebooks into an exciting thriller, and that's just as big of a challenge. Part of Madden's strategy is to make us wonder about the movie's most important question. Madden does a fantastic job keeping the audience in the fog about Catherine's mental and emotional state. We, like the people who care about her, are left to interpret each outburst and motive, attempt to read her to see if she is telling the truth and wonder what she must be going through at this emotional and frightening time. All of this is made possible by Paltrow as she puts in one of the best performances of her life. Many of you have never seen Paltrow's movie, Sylvia (consider yourself lucky), which was about the disturbed poet, Sylvia Plath. It was a similar character, but Paltrow shows us she learned from that movie's mistakes. In Proof, she is much more natural and draws out sympathy from the audience as she goes through the kinds of problems we have all experienced, or fear experiencing. Paltrow knows when to push her performance to the edge and make the audience think she has finally succumbed to all of the pressure, then pulls it back to continue the mystery and concern. She avoids going all melodramatic, and truly delivers in the movie's biggest moments. While Paltrow clearly is the star, Davis is just as important to the movie. Hopkins is a legendary actor, and does very well with his limited scenes, but Davis is left to be the Ying to Paltrow's Yang. While Paltrow gets the meaty role with all of the emoting, Davis has to find a way to keep us interested in her Miss Peppy, list making, slightly self-absorbed, neatnik character. Like we wonder about Catherine's sanity, Davis is left to make us question Claire's motives and concern for her sister. Thankfully, she is more than up to the challenge drawing on her voice and body mechanics to convey so many multiple meanings to every line. Sadly, after such a strong start and establishment of the characters, Madden and co-writers David Auburn and Rebecca Miller (based on Auburn's play, which was performed by Paltrow in London) lose their way. Auburn and Miller provide heart wrenching dialogue and twists for all of the characters as well as develop a key love story without letting it over power the main plot, but it's a little too easy to get lost towards the end of Proof. Focus in the movie shifts from Catherine's mental state to the discovery of a possibly groundbreaking mathematical formula, but we just aren't as interested in that. It's not the inclusion of math that makes the audience lose track of what's happening, it's Auburn, Miller and Madden. The pace of flipping back and forth between flashback and current time, combined with Catherine's behavior, is too much to handle. The truth is too hard to find and distracts us from the more compelling human drama playing out between Catherine, Hal and Claire. Proof is a good movie, but the end left me scratching my head and wishing for something a little bit better. Proof opens in NY and LA September 16, and around the country September 23. 3 Waffles (Out Of 4) Copyright 2005 - WaffleMovies.com
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