 Films about mathematics, especially at university level, are not the first titles that come to mind in wondering what would be most popular at the box-office.
However, during the 1980s, there was an interesting and challenging film about difficulties in schools in Hispanic East Los Angeles. The subject being taught was calculus. The film was Stand and Deliver with Edward James Olmos as a dedicated teacher who wanted to improve standards and possibilities in life for his students. It turned out to be quite popular.
More recently, a film about mathematics and the nature of intellectual genius won the Oscar for Best Film and was seen by millions. This was Ron Howard’s biography of Nobel Prize-winner, John Nash, memorably played by Russell Crowe. While there were many maths sequences, there was a great deal of plot beyond the maths. John Nash was diagnosed as schizophrenic. He lived part of his life in an interior world populated by espionage and code breakers as well as imaginary friends who dramatised other facets of his personality.
Proof is more in this vein.
It is based on a successful play by David Auburn which won awards on Broadway and was seen successfully around the world. In London, Gwyneth Paltrow played the leading character on the West End.
Proof is more of a specialist film and it would not be expected to be big box-office, despite Gwyneth Paltrow bringing her theatre performance to the screen.
But that does not mean that Proof is not worth seeing – and sitting back for some sequences where the talk about proofs and theorems and equations and prime numbers is more than a bit beyond most of us.
It is probably more accurate to describe Proof as a film about genius and about madness. Films about the mind and the psyche are often fascinating explorations of human nature, strengths and weaknesses.
The central character is 27 year old Catherine Llewellyn (Paltrow) whose mathematics professor father, Robert, has just died. She is grieving since she has been caring for him for three years, giving up her studies and her ambitions to tend him. A brilliant scholar in Britain and then in the US, he has been suffering from forms of madness for years, working away diligently at his studies but producing only notebooks of gibberish.
Her older sister, Claire, turns up, a practical woman wanting to interfere and control under the guise of taking care of Catherine. A maths teacher, taught by her father, Hal Dobbs, also turns up. Ultimately (but not without some severe tests of trust), he provides an alternative for Catherine’s life. She herself is like her father, a maths genius, but afraid that she too will descend into madness. An elaborate 40 page proof is at the centre of the crisis and the question of who wrote it, Robert or Catherine.
The credentials on this production are impeccable. David Auburn has adapted his play with the assistance of screenwriter and director, Rebecca Miller (Personal Velocity, Ballad of Jack and Rose – and daughter of Arthur Miller). Director John Madden guided Gwyneth Paltrow to her Oscar in Shakespeare in Love. Gwyneth Paltrow herself brings a subtle poignancy to her quiet performance, suggesting vulnerability as well as determination, showing devotion but also deep apprehensiveness about her own mental condition. Hope Davis, often acting in lesser known independent films, is completely convincing as the ever-talking, list-making and busy Claire. Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Jarhead, Brokeback Mountain) is sympathetic as the do-gooding Hal. As Robert Llewellyn, Anthony Hopkins gives an assured performance, appearing at times in his daughter’s imagination, seen in a series of flashback which show his mental deterioration, his determination and his sad acceptance of his condition. Proof is a specialist film but it is interesting and thoughtful.
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