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

James Hitchcock Proof" (2005) is the last in an unofficial trilogy of American films about mathematicians, following on from "Good Will Hunting" (1997), and "A Beautiful Mind" (2001). The central characters are Robert Llewellyn, a distinguished British-born mathematician at the University of Chicago, and his daughter Catherine. Robert is dead when the film opens, but we see him several times in flashback and once as a ghost. We learn that as a young man Robert was regarded as a mathematical genius but suffered from mental illness towards the end of his life. Catherine is, like her father, an academic mathematician. She may have inherited his intellectual gifts, however, but there is also an implication that she may also have inherited his mental instability; certainly her behaviour is often neurotic and irrational. The film revolves around the possibility that, despite his mental problems, Robert might have produced important work during his latter years. He has left a vast quantity of notebooks which Catherine and her boyfriend Hal, a former graduate student of Robert's, assiduously search through. Another important character is Catherine's older sister Claire, an orderly, fussy New York housewife with little interest in mathematics or any intellectual pursuits. The word "Proof" is here used both in its technical mathematical sense and in its everyday sense of "evidence". The crux of the story comes when Hal comes across a notebook containing a mathematical proof which, if valid, would be of immense significance. The question arises of whether this proof is indeed Robert's own work or whether Catherine actually wrote it herself- and if she did, can she prove it? The exact nature of the proof- something to do with prime numbers- is never revealed, but this does not really matter as pure mathematics is not really a subject which can be dramatised on the screen. Gwyneth Paltrow, in Britain at least, has something of the reputation of an eccentric luvvie, with her idiosyncratic language (such as describing her marital break-up as "conscious uncoupling"- or was it "unconscious coupling"), her advocacy of faddish diets and, of course, her special Oscar for Most Emotionally Incontinent Acceptance Speech Ever. Even eccentric luvvies, however, can occasionally rise above their own eccentricity, and while too many of Gwyneth's films have fallen firmly into the "I did it because I needed the money" category, she can occasionally come up with something special, as in "Emma", "Sliding Doors", "Sylvia" and again here. Her Catherine is a strange young woman, but someone we can recognise as human and sympathise with. Coming up with something special is something which Anthony Hopkins does on a regular rather than an occasional basis, and his performance as Robert is well up to his usual high standards. I also liked Jake Gyllenhaal as Hal. The film was based on a theatrical play with only four characters. The director makes some attempt to open the subject up and a few bit-part characters are introduced, but "Proof", dominated more by talk than by action, still betrays its origins on the stage. A film like this, based around a theme which the great majority of the population (myself included) will find very abstruse, could have become intolerably boring; that it does not is largely due to some fine acting. 6/10

thefadingcam Proof is a traditional narrative oriented movie about the daughter of a brilliant mathematician that is mentally ill. After his death, the daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow), begins being obsessed by the possibility that she inherited that mental illness. Proof is a very competent movie. Very well written, very well acted and with a very relevant plot. It's hard to criticize Proof because it doesn't fall on the temptation of forcing you to feel compassion for its characters. Even if the plot is a bit manipulated (it is a movie), the characters feel very real, along with their personal issues, which are unpretentiously presented to the audience. Great cast, very well done, mysterious, a delight until the end. Visit thefadingcam blog for more!

willmurphy6663-932-794083 Hi I've read a lot of the reviews and i can see why most people like this film. its story area may have been touched on in a beautiful mind and good will hunting, but it takes a different slant on it. AnthonyHopkins is a maths genius but becomes mentally unwell and looses hispowers mathematically. He has two daughters the youngest of which is Gwyneth Paltrow who stays behind to look after him. This costs her and she becomes trapped by him though they connect mentally through mathematics. After his death the elder sister comes back: there is agood take on mental health here because she is very controlling and undermining but would see herself as well strong and here to look afterher sister. The other main character play by Jake G. is a ray of sunshine to me (some have found in unrealistic in their reviews) and the scene is set for a well acted film with a good script...