What is it about mathematics that brings out the nutty professor in Hollywood?
Writers who must have failed calculus try to pump drama into dry algorithms with splashes of schizophrenia (“Proof,” the script at hand), mysterious CIA operatives (“A Beautiful Mind,” see also: schizophrenia) and repressed child abuse (“Good Will Hunting”). Not very laughable subjects, mind you, but really, does the number-crunching have to hurt so much? Next time I meet a math freak who’s just an average nerd, instead of certifiable, I’m going to buy him a new pocket protector.
“Proof” goes even further than those other two math-related heart calipers by asking us to feel sorry for Gwyneth Paltrow, who on her worst day on earth would still be the queen of the campus. She’s moping alone on her 27th birthday, hiding unsuccessfully behind that golden mane as she flips channels through infomercials. She’s an unhappy math whiz, mourning the death of her famous father. She is “Shakespeare in Fractions.”
Catherine gave up serious studies to care for her dying father, played as Zorba the Geek by the
always-emoting Anthony Hopkins. They holed up in their Chicago house making dirty dishes and solving math proofs as dad went slowly delusional. “Proof” opens at his death, and Catherine’s bossy older sister (Hope Davis) arrives to run the funeral.
The camera loves Gwyneth’s face, but the writers don’t give her much to work with. “Proof” is full of the kind of adult emotions demanded from junior high schoolers during counseling groups: “I’d like to take some time to figure things out.” “That is not what this is about.” “Am I coming on too strong?” “You’re a mysterious person, Catherine.”
Catherine knows that all too well. She is so mysterious no one could possibly understand what she’s gone through, as she points out over and over. She is so mysterious that she can be unrelentingly obnoxious, yet we’re supposed to love her anyway for being such a character.
The drama meant to save or ruin Catherine comes from a little black composition book. Dad’s grad student, played gamely by Jake Gyllenhaal, rifles through a desk drawer and finds a math proof that would, of course, change everything except Catherine’s bad attitude. Since Dad was shedding decimals, though, and daughter is something less than a prime number herself, it’s unclear who wrote the proof.
“Proof” is a former hit stage play, and here it comes off even more stagey than most movie adaptations. In a theater with the right actress, “Proof” might have seemed a one-woman tour de force, a loud cry for recognition and understanding. Flattened onto the screen, though, everybody always seems to be saying exactly the wrong thing to poor Gwyneth, which gives her the right to be insufferable.
The director injects fake tension with sudden rushes to the airport, as if there’s only one flight a month from Chicago to New York, and with grad students running down the street to chase a departing car, as if no one at the University of Chicago has managed to trust-fund themselves into a working vehicle.
When Catherine/Gwyneth finally makes her dramatic summation, her claim is nearly drowned out by “Proof’s” overbearing soundtrack. The filmmakers don’t seem to trust the emotions they’ve tried to invest throughout their movie. I’m afraid they’re right. There’s no proving we ever cared.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
** | “Proof”
PG-13 for adult situations|1 hour, 40 minutes|DRAMA|Directed by John Madden; written by David Auburn and Rebecca Miller from the play by Auburn; starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hope Davis and Anthony Hopkins|Opens today at the Esquire.
