PROOF (2005) Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hope Davis.

Directed by John Madden.

Running time: 99 minutes.

Rating PG

The daughter (Paltrow) of a world renowned but mentally ill mathematician (Hopkins) who has just died tries to come to cope with having possibly inherited his brilliance or his insanity or both. Complicating matters are one of her father's ex-students (Gyllenhaal) who wants to sift through his writings for possible scraps of valuable intellectual property and her sister (Davis) who arrives wanting to sell the house and commit her.

Hope Davis seems to have carved out a niche for herself in Hollywood as the woman that disappoints the main character in movies. It is the kind of role she played so well in ABOUT SCHMIDT and THE WEATHERMAN. Here she plays the well-meaning sister of the troubled genius protrayed by Paltrow. She is eager to help Catherine (Paltrow) but does not have a clue what her sister really needs and that is about all that the two of them have in common.

It is easy to be cynical in assessing Gwyneth Paltrow's place in Hollywood. Her father was a producer (Bruce Paltrow), her mother was an actress (Blythe Danner) and she got a ton of publicity from dating brad Pitt. Some of her roles are merely forgettable (MOONLIGHT & VALENTINO, POSSESSION). Some probably had potential before she ruined them (SLIDING DOORS, A PERFECT MURDER). In this one she is given the role she was absolutely born to play: an uptight, doe-eyed albino who owes everything she is to who her father was and the people he knows.

Sir Anthony Hopkins plays her troubled genius father in this movie, a man who had done his best work by age 23 then went progessively mad. This is ironic as Hopkins did not hit his peak of Hollyodd stardom until his mid-fifties and has been on the a-list ever since.

If I avoid talking about Gyllenhaals in movies it is no reflection upon their talent. I just dread having to remember how to spell "Gyllenhaal". Jake Gyllenhaal gives a merely passable performance (the way the role is written it allows for very little) as Catherine's grad student lover who doubts her and briefly confirms her worst fears about the outside world and it's, at times, excrutiating cynicism.

Not a bad movie but not very entertaining.

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