Synopsis
Catherine is a woman in her late twenties who is strongly devoted to her father, Robert, a brilliant and well-known mathematician whose grip on reality is beginning to slip away. As Robert descends into madness, Catherine begins to wonder if she may have inherited her father's mental illness along with his mathematical genius.
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Cast
- Gwyneth PaltrowCatherine Llewellyn
- Anthony HopkinsRobert Llewellyn
- Jake GyllenhaalHarold 'Hal' Dobbs
- Hope DavisClaire Llewellyn
- Danny McCarthyCop
- Tobiasz DaszkiewiczLimo Driver
- Gary HoustonProfessor Barrow
- Leigh ZimmermanFriend at Party
- Colin StintonTheoretical Physicist
- Leland BurnettBand Vocalist
Recommendations
- 90
Time
Proof is on the side of the lost, blessed souls. Paltrow, as alluring and reassuring as ever, emphasizes the blessedness in the isolation of genius, giving a new dimension to a complex role. New, true and thrilling--she is the Catherine that Proof was waiting for. - 80
Variety
But despite less-than-ideal casting of the male roles, and a tendency to soften the Pulitzer Prize-winning work's thorny humor with a more sober tone, director John Madden has woven together an elegant, intelligent drama of a breed increasingly rare in mainstream American movies. - 75
Christian Science Monitor
But at its highest level of ambition, Proof fails to deliver. The film becomes a psychological whodunit where Catherine is shown to be either a martyr to her father or else his intellectual equal. None of it is terribly convincing. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Gwyneth Paltrow is triumphant in this somewhat derivative and overly stage-bound film. - 70
The A.V. Club
Hopkins' increasing disconnection with his fellow actors and the material nearly sabotages Proof, an otherwise-respectable adaptation of David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. - 70
L.A. Weekly
Engrossing. - 67
Entertainment Weekly
In Proof, Paltrow plays yet another young woman who is being gnawed at by termites of instability, only this time out, her performance, rather than startling, is merely competent: earnest and overly familiar. - 50
Rolling Stone
Madden directed Paltrow in the play on the London stage, but he does his "Shakespeare in Love" goddess no favors by filling the screen with big close-ups that betray the theatrical origins of the piece and drain the movie of life and urgency. Proof hasn't been filmed at all -- it's been embalmed.
