Proof that a good script does not always make a good film (Proof (DVD))

Member Name: Fairydustbitch

Product:	Proof (DVD)
Date:	20/02/06 (440 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very little...unless you count Jake Gyllenhaal being very fit.

Disadvantages: The acting, the casting, the plot, the direction...everything... .

Oh my god. That’s one hour and forty minutes of my life I am NEVER getting back…not that I was counting…no, I was falling asleep in the back of the cinema…or trying to fall asleep and forget the utter cheese-fest that was this film. I have no idea what the director or half the cast were thinking when they signed on to do this movie.

Directed by John Madden, Proof has an all-star cast of Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins…its all downhill from here. Paltrow is Catherine, the daughter of a mathematical genius Robert, who recently kicked the bucket…not that you’d know because Catherine still has conversations with him. Oh and by the way, Robert was insane, and Catherine spent most of her time housebound caring for him and has become a bit of a junk-food eating recluse (who somehow still has a willowy figure and perfect skin and hair…how odd). Then there’s Hal (Gyllenhaal) a maths geek lecturer and drummer on the side who wants to go through Roberts last notebooks (all 103 of them); which are pretty much full of the ramblings of a man who has lost his mind, although Hal thinks there may be a moment of genius in there somewhere. And he also wants the chance to shag Catherine...naturally. Lets leave the incredibly unlikely probability of someone as ludicrously attractive as Jake Gyllenhaal being a maths geek (if that’s what maths geniuses look like these days, I know what I’ll be studying at university) and deal with Claire (Hope Davis), Catherine’s insanely cheerful and highly insensitive sister who has her own little crazy habits and who wants to sell Robert’s house and cart Catherine off the New York where she can see a good shrink. Throw in one notebook with a brilliant and ridiculously complicated mathematical proof that Catherine is convinced she wrote (Hal and Claire don’t believe her) and the most insensitive wake ever (involving a shockingly bad rock band and a lot of people getting laid), and there you have it…Proof in a nut shell.

This clearly aims for the likes of “Good Will Hunting” and “A Beautiful Mind” but ends up being more cheesy romance with a mathematical twist…well of course the lead character is a chick and she needs a nice, strong supportive guy to get her genius out into the world. Its corny and fake with the most false dialogue I have EVER heard in a movie, and its only saving grace is Jake Gyllenhaal…not that his performance is any good, in fact its abysmal, but at least he looks adorable whilst making bad maths puns.

Gwyneth Paltrow is absolutely bloody awful in this. I’ll admit I’ve never been her biggest fan, but the term “wet mop” comes to mind in this movie to consider her acting in this movie. She wibbles, she pouts and cries and makes big eyes in an attempt to seem sensitive and perhaps a little crazy, but her performance just comes off as histrionic Cuckoo’s Nest instead of a portrayal of a woman who is fragile but nonetheless gifted...kind of like her Oscar acceptance speech then. She is supposed to be walking the line between brilliant and insane, when in real life this sort of behaviour would have her in the asylum already, its way too over the top as well as being plain girly and irritating. She also shows very little bereavement at the loss of her father, most of her tears seem to be totally self involved. Neither does her sister Claire show any bereavement, insisting she wants people to “have fun” at the wake…huh?!?! What is supposed to be confused and hurt comes off as petty, spoilt child with Paltrow‘s Catherine. I have to say the script hasn’t helped her any, and of course it takes a director to get performances out of his cast, so all I can say is he must have been on his coffee break during all of Paltrow’s scenes…or possibly just the entire movie.

Normally you can expect that if Jake Gyllenhaal is in a movie, even if the movie sucks you will have something interesting to watch because his performances are usually impressive…not this time. I have never, EVER seen a cheesier portrayal of a male love interest in my life…Kevin Costner has nothing on him. The way he cracks jokes are ridiculously corny, and his big puppy dog “I care that you’re so upset” faces just make me queasy…and that’s a hell of an achievement. Throw in the cringiest (which according to my spell-checker is not a word) and fakest love scene ever in the history of all love scenes (although to be fair that was 50% Gwyneth‘s fault) and you have one incredibly hammed up performance.

Speaking of hams, Anthony Hopkins takes melodrama to a new level in this flick. I have a sneaking liking for the guy but his performance is terrible in this. Its OTT personified and he just comes off as effusive English gentleman when he’s supposed to be…ya know, nuts. I actually found myself closing my eyes during his scenes they were so over the top. I’ve never heard myself saying “Sir Anthony, shut the *bleep* up” during any of his films before, and I almost felt guilty thinking it.

Generally all the performances are way overstated and the actors involved have clearly been instructed to go the way of melodrama…and melodrama is the way they go. Gwyneth wails, Anthony gesticulates wildly and Jake lurks in the corner looking puppydog, pouting and cracking the bad jokes. I have never been a great fan of melodrama, it makes me cringe and that’s pretty much what the acting throughout this film made me do. Gwyneth Paltrow is capable of a good performance (although most of her films will tell you otherwise), and I KNOW that both Gyllenhaal and Hopkins can and do usually deliver superb performances, so I really have to place the blame for the bad acting mostly in the hands of the director here, because all the performances are the same type of stagey, exaggerated nonsense.

The plot…hmmm…well there isn’t much of one really. This movie just seems like an excuse to have loud arguments on screen for an hour and a half. I don’t mind a movie with minimal plot if it has something brilliant in there instead, but this really doesn’t. The film starts, Catherine and Hal have an argument, then Claire and Catherine argue and Catherine cries, then she cries some more (whilst having sex), and there are some more arguments thrown in with flashbacks of Catherine’s last days with the biggest ham on earth. I don’t think I’ve ever been in the cinema watching a movie so bad that I was actually wishing I’d fall asleep…until now. Sadly its hard to fall asleep when Gwyneth is wailing and arguing on a giant screen in front of you. The film is based on the play of the same name, which is supposed to be superb, by the way. Its easy to tell that the film is based on a play script, as not much actually happens, besides much arguing, and the story definitely doesn’t work well in movie form.

The dialogue reads like something that’s been translated from another language, and badly. It feels like the whole film was lost in translation. What I mean when I say it sounds like a translation is that there are no quirks, dialects or humanities in the language, if you get what I mean, it just sounds like subtitles look, mechanic and flat…I often feel that you miss a lot of lingual intricacies reading subtitles, and that’s really how this feels too…hard to explain but if you watch you might understand what I mean. The jokes are clunky, cheesy and unfunny, the arguments are far too quick and just feel so unbelievably fake, with loudness taking the place of portraying emotion...raising your voice does not a fine actor make.

The relationship between Hal and Catherine makes me want to heave. Apparently, in the play that this film is based upon, Catherine takes much longer to come around to Hal. I don’t understand how such a loner could turn into a lover in such a short space of time. The whole relationship progresses far too quickly, and although I can forgive any woman wanting to jump straight into Jake Gyllenhaal‘s bed, sadly it doesn’t make for a very believable relationship, when Catherine is supposed to be an isolated eccentric genius. Paltrow plays the come-rescue-me damsel in distress card, which really shouldn’t be allowed in movies made after 1989...and Jake Gyllenhaal will never be the stereotypical romantic hero (thankfully).

You can tell this movie is trying to raise questions about when genius becomes insanity, and when insanity IS insanity, but generally its incredibly clueless and just doesn’t work. The only way in which this works is with Claire, Catherine’s sister. Unlike Catherine, she seems pretty together, but she’s clearly suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder (ooh, check out the A level psychology coming into action) and shows so little emotion at the thought of her “beloved” (those are sarcastic quote marks) father dying that she could almost be a sociopath too. It actually works quite well because unlike Catherine, Claire’s insanity is subtle and based on suggestion rather than huffing and crying.

All in all, this movie is cringe worthy. You know a movie is embarrassingly bad when you are mortified watching it in the cinema even though you are there on your own. From the trailers and from what I’ve heard about the play, Proof could have been intriguing and clever, but it has just turned into an excuse for a corny “Woman finding herself and finding hot guy along the way” film. I don’t understand why female leads always need to find a bloke before they can find any strength in themselves, it drives me nuts. I think in the hands of the right director this film could have been absolutely stunning, and perhaps a different actress in the role of Catherine wouldn’t have gone amiss…no offence Gywneth. Jake Gyllenhaal is rather miscast also, he really should stick to his quirky and unusual roles because this one doesn’t suit him at all, despite his incredible versatility. Its quite upsetting sitting watching a film that, in the hands of the right director, could have been a very fine film. I imagine the fans of the play are not happy about this.

Summary: Gwyneth Paltrow throws a hissy fit