Proof
#43 in my movie challenge for this year was last year’s Proof, directed by John Madden and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal. (There’s another movie by the same name from a while back, which was on that “overlooked movie” list.) I almost skipped this movie, since I felt so busy this week. I told the librarian to put it back in the queue since I didn’t have time to watch it. He shook his head, and told me to rearrange things so I could watch it. After that recommendation, I had to watch it, even though I knew it had gotten mixed reviews. It took a while for me to enjoy it; its origins as a play are quite clear, and some scenes were very stage-y. Additional, Gyllenhaal and Paltrow often sounded stilted, as if they were reading lines. But the story grew on me. Paltrow is the daughter of a mathematician played by Anthony Hopkins. The story jumps back and forth in time as we see their relationship, his madness, and as we try to determine which of them wrote a math proof, and whether she is going crazy, as he had. Uneven, but it finishes strong.