PROOF

PROOF

Like Possession, which I discussed last week, Proof, based on a Tony Award winning play by the same name, stars Gwyneth Paltrow.  She plays Catherine, the mathematically gifted daughter of a genius mathematician, Dr. Robert Llewellyn (Anthony Hopkins), who produced ground-breaking calculations by the time he was 22.   Unfortunately, due to mental illness, his talent rapidly declined, and he spent most of his life as just one of the many math professors at the University of Chicago.  As the story opens, we are ushered into the house through a rain drenched window where Catherine is languishing on the couch in her pajamas watching infomercials.  We think she is alone until her father saunters into the room, begins to chastise her for being unproductive, then wishes her a happy birthday by offering a bottle of cheap wine.  Their ensuing conversation fills us in on two central facts: Catherine has been her father’s lone caregiver for an extended period of time, and he died from a brain aneurysm a few days earlier.  


Robert’s ghost vanishes and we think, one again, that Catherine is alone until Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) enters the room.  A former student of the professor’s, he has been upstairs sorting through his mentor’s things hoping to discover something that can recapture the old man’s genius. Catherine reminds Hal that her father hasn’t done any worthwhile work in years, then, inexplicably, becomes so angry when she discovers that he is trying to sneak one of the notebooks out of the house, she calls the police.  It isn’t until much later that we will learn why she is so upset.  Hal mollifies Catherine by explaining that the notebook is about her.  He says he wanted to wrap it for her birthday.  While she is thinking this over, he takes off leaving her to deal with the cops alone.  


The next time we see Catherine, she is greeting her sister, Claire (Hope Davis), who has breezed into town from New York just long enough to attend her father’s memorial. Up to now, we had been under the impression that Robert only had one person to help him and the surprise we feel upon discovering that there is another daughter is almost palpable.   That the relationship between the two women is touchy quickly becomes apparent as we listen to Claire’s immediate attempts to take over and note Catherine’s acerbic resistance.  Their communication deteriorates rapidly when Claire announces that the house, her sister’s home, is being sold to the university and that Catherine is being taken back to New York where Claire can take care of her. It’s obvious that Claire believes her younger sister needs “taking care of” because, along with inheriting their father’s mathematical abilities, she also has his mental illness. This concern does not come as a shock to the audience because we have witnessed Catherine’s odd behavior.  She is antisocial (she doesn’t have any friends), delusional (she sees and converses with her dead father), and forgetful (she “loses time”).  Claire even accuses Catherine of imaging Hal, an opinion she relinquishes only when he shows up at the house.  


Intermixed with contemporaneous events are Catherine’s memories of life before her father’s death: most notably the good period he’d enjoyed three years previously, which gave her a chance to enroll in college, and the subsequent mental deterioration that caused her to forget school and return home.  But when Catherine moves back in, Robert makes it clear that he desires more from her than cooking and cleaning (neither of which she does well).  He needs a partner, someone to share his research, and insists that she begin doing mathematics, too.  At first, she agrees simply to mollify him, but soon she becomes hooked on the work.  As she struggles to develop her own proof, Robert continuously crows that the work he is doing now is as good as, if not better than, what he accomplished in his youth.  We aren’t allowed to see his notebooks, but the way Catherine immediately decides to return home after reading them indicates that something is seriously wrong.  


The turning point of the story occurs the day after the memorial when Hal, once again nosing through Robert’s things, finds a ground-breaking calculation.   He wants to take it public.  Claire is thrilled.  Catherine objects.  When they both point out to Catherine that this would give Robert the recognition he deserves, she contends that the work is hers.  Naturally, they don’t believe her. Instead, they accuse her of wanting so badly to have written something great, she only imagines she did it.  After all, the handwriting is her father’s.  Their doubts threaten to break Catherine, and those of us who have watched her toil, fear that her labor will go unrecognized and unacknowledged.  I, personally, ached to step into the screen and testify on her behalf.  


I won’t say anything more because I don’t want to spoil the ending.  I will only add that the outcome stays with me for days every time I watch it, my definition of a truly successful plot.  Anyway, that’s all for now.  I’ll be back next week with a movie that deserves another glance.  Until then, enjoy a flick…or two.