Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

andy-getsu Proof is interesting in what it says about genius, my point being not so much about the borders between genius and madness, but about the burdens that genius Lays on those around it, about the how the lives of others are left in the shadows behind the brilliance of a creative genius. Paltrow's Claire is most of the story, as she has been her mad father's caretaker, and has put aside her own ambitions. Now, it emerges that she has accomplished a proof which is a grail or philosopher's stone, which everyone would have expected from her father but not from her. She doesn't straightforwardly present it, and when she identifies it as hers, she immediately gets treated to disbelief and contempt that she has tried to claim this last triumph of her father's fire herself. Her sister sees her father's life and accomplishments as something to be escaped from and does her best to physically drag Claire away from Chicago and father's Hyde Park home, and is incapable of comprehending Claire's desire to remain. Claire however is bound up in the legacy of her father's genius and her proof is certainly a tribute to that, but she feels diminished that because she put aside her own career to care for her father that no one will respect that the proof is her work and not her father's.I suspect that Gwyneth, like Emma Watson as Hermione in Harry Potter, is a lot prettier than the author had in mind for that character, and we may have difficulty feeling the depressed Claire with what a pretty girl we know Gwyneth to be, and at odd moments we realize that we might perceive a scene differently if Gwyneth were not a beautiful woman, but that's not to say fails to play her role brilliantly throughout. I wrote this review after I saw on her IMDb bio: it seems that Pepper Potts, feisty, but still essentially arm candy, from Ironman, is her greatest acting triumph since Shakespeare in Love.On the production side, I'm disappointed to see Proof didn't gross over $8 million, but I can't really imagine how it cost $20 million to make. Most of the story takes place inside a pretty typical Chicago bungalow, and other very ordinary locations. There's no effects. Even if it's hard to imagine it having cost $2o million and you'd like to see Gwyneth Paltrow in a weightier role than as Ironman's arm candy, look in on Proof. This movie deserves more attention.

zafar142007 I happened to watch this one accidentally. It was a happy accident!At the core of the film lies a daughter's grief for the loss of her father. I could only compare the portrayal to Intersteller's heart-wrenching drama about a father and a daughter trapped in space-time, to underscore how well it has been done. Gwyneth Paltrow has made a fan out of me for her lifelike performance in this movie.Apart from the stellar acting performances of the entire lead cast, the film's narrative structure is most interesting, and original in terms of build-up and climax. The story does not become predictable, and it's only towards the end we understand Catherine's inner struggles to accept that her father is gone. This is a treat to watch. Gyllenhaal and Hopkins also have lived their characters well.Overall, it is masterfully done cinema underlining the best of human emotions.

Python Hyena Proof (2005): Dir: John Madden / Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hope Davis, Leigh Zimmerman: Intense yet provocative film about state of being. Anthony Hopkins plays a mathematical genius who gradually slips into insanity while under the care of his daughter, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. After his death she questions her own state of mind as a student researches her father's journals in order to understand their meaning. Engaging premise that become a series of arguments. Director John Madden worked with Paltrow in the engaging yet overrated Shakespeare in Love. This time he switches gears and receives a much more defined performance from Paltrow who struggles to maintain a sense of identity. Hopkins is commanding in flashbacks showcasing his madness. Jake Gyllenhaal tries to unscramble Hopkins's journals but he also falls within the film's one central weakness and that is its hinted innuendo between he and Paltrow. Hope Davis plays Paltrow's protective sister who begins to question her sanity and the chance that she may follow in her father's footsteps. Outside the leads there is minor characters that occupy very little screen time until it gets to the plot points. Very well made drama with strong casting and a reason for being. It regards how heredity can shape our lifestyle less we break the cycle. Score: 6 ½ / 10

BJJManchester A big screen version of a Pulitzer Prize winning stage play,PROOF eventually all too obviously falls victim to it's theatrical origins and ends up as flat and unexceptional with little cinematic qualities.A brilliant but ageing mathematician Robert (Anthony Hopkins), is looked after by his young daughter Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) through serious mental health problems until his death.Catherine has followed in her father's mathematical footsteps,and a former student of her father's,Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) thinks he may have found evidence of products of her father's work in various notebooks.Catherine's sister Claire (Hope Davis) arrives for the funeral,and begins to think her sister is showing signs of mental illness like their father,but it soon emerges that it may be Catherine and not Robert who is responsible for this academic breakthrough, according to further research by Hal in the various notebooks.But it may not be an easy task for her to persuade the University where her father taught and she sporadically attends,about such proof.The operations of maths and mathematicians has not proved to be a particularly exciting subject in cinema, and PROOF is no exception to that rule.Like other titles such as GOOD WILL HUNTING,PI and A BEAUTIFUL MIND,there is a tendency to treat such characters as socially awkward,eccentric and mentally ill to beef up interest in the subject matter,though this veers into caricature and stereotyping.Director John Madden attempts to open up the stage original by way of actual Chicago locations,the addition of superfluous minor characters and some interesting camera movement,but the only really clever moments occur at the very beginning,with a semi-surrealist conversation between Hopkins and Paltrow which climaxes in a darkly amusing and adroit fashion,but there on in is afflicted by slabs of typically pretentious theatrical dialogue,unsympathetic characters and ill-cast actors.The acting on show eventually becomes too strident and over-emphatic at the cost of naturalness;La Paltrow goes through all kinds of emotions like fear,hate,love,sadness,desire,aggression,spite and petulance,without making her mentally fragile character likable or endearing,sometimes dissolving into theatrical histrionics which do not expose themselves well on the big screen.She clearly seems to be trying for another Oscar here as she won several years previously with Madden in Shakespeare IN LOVE,but in the event only received a Golden Globe nomination (which she lost to Felicity Huffman), and tries rather too hard and not too subtly in doing so.Hopkins does not appear that much but performs in his familiar post-Hannibal mode of speaking quietly one moment then bellowing out explosively the next, while Gyllenhall is ineffectual and whiny as Gwynnie's would-be suitor and fellow maths geek.The three principals don't really convince as maths devotees,and there is very little detail of the equations involved,which makes such emoting even less believable.The less academically-inclined main character, played by Davis, actually comes across as the most personable despite some brusque,neurotic,avaricious aspects,and wants to genuinely help her troubled sister.But PROOF's main problem is that the story is not particularly interesting or edifying,a bit like mathematics itself as most of the really important discoveries and revelations on the subject were made thousands of years ago (mainly in Ancient Greece), and any that are made in the modern era come across as slight amendments that cause barely a flicker of interest in the media or the general public.Gwyneth Paltrow has also appeared in the stage version,and that's where it basically belongs,as PROOF is essentially a theatrical and not cinematic experience.RATING:5 and a half out of 10.