With the help of my SuperSpy Night
Pen, I always take diligent notes during a screening. My handwritten
observations of Proof, the new Gwyneth Paltrow-Anthony Hopkins act-stravaganza,
began as they often do, with little notations and a couple of quotes, then
gradually devolved into increasingly desperate scrawls reading “I don’t care,”
“Blah blah blah,” and finally, “OH MY GOD, JUST END.” In fact, that last phrase
became a mantra that I whispered until my actual deliverance.
Paltrow returns from maternity leave
to portray Catherine, a Chicagoan who is unsuccessfully coping with the recent
loss of her revered math professor father (Hopkins) as well as the possibility
that the debilitating mental illness that sidelined him during his final years
has begun to take hold of her. Catherine, a talented mathematician in her own
right, decided to leave college in order to take care of her deteriorating dad
while her uptight sister (a misused Hope Davis) made a cushy life for herself
in Manhattan.
Enter Hal Dobbs (Jake Gyllenhaal,
dreamy yet irrelevant), a former acolyte of her father who pores through
notebooks kept by Catherine’s dad on the lookout for anything his beautiful
mind may have produced during his occasional brushes with reality. The plot
then concerns itself with whether a mathematical proof that Hal discovers was
written by Catherine’s brilliant dad or by Catherine herself, and whether the
earth will continue to rotate on its axis once assorted geeks, dweebs, and
nerds get a gander at this supposedly thrilling mumbo-jumbo. (Oh, here’s one
more insight from my notes: “Math is boring.”)
Proof was originally a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and retooling a stage production
so that it works on film is tricky. The screen version, directed by Shakespeare in Love‘s John Madden and
written by Rebecca Miller and David Auburn, the play’s author, takes advantage
of its liberation from the confines of the stage (the Windy City has a lovely
skyline) but is unable to shake the inelegant theatricality of the dialogue. This
is most likely due to the fact that the cast showcases more ham than a deli.
Paltrow also played the Catherine
role in the London staging of Proof,
and by now she should have been able to imbue her character with a little
humanity and grace. Instead, Paltrow relies upon petulant and oddly deadpan
histrionics, and there’s just not enough backstory to elicit empathy for such
an unlikable character. And I hate to say it, but Hopkins may have worn out his
welcome. He had a great run there in the first half of the ’90s, but the
majority of his recent roles have found him overacting as if there were a gun
leveled at his head.
Then
there’s that split-second of confusion whenever John Madden’s name pops up in
relation to a film. Of course it’s in reference to the Oscar-nominated
director, but I like to imagine how a movie would fare under the auspices of
the other John Madden — you know,
the volatile former Raiders coach and current video game baron. So after
careful consideration, it’s my belief that Proof could have benefited from better pass protection and way more tackling.
Films
like Esther Kahn and My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument have cemented Arnaud Desplechin’s status as one of France’s most inventive
filmmakers. For his latest film, Kings
and Queen, he uses the myth of Zeus and Leda, Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,”
some shrewd editing, and a smattering of the abundantly cool Catherine Deneuve
to tell the tale of a conventional family in a surprisingly unconventional way.
Kings is broken into two chapters and an epilogue, and it focuses on two main
characters. Nora (Emmanuelle Devos, last seen in The Beat that My Heart Skipped) is a Parisian art gallery manager
with a son, a sugar daddy, and a father in need of some care. We meet Ismaël
(Mathieu Amalric) as he’s being committed. He is a gifted musician with a gonzo
lawyer and a way with the ladies, although he’s not too pleased with his new
shrink (Deneuve). These seemingly unrelated stories take their time in
converging, though to relate how and why would be terribly rude of me.
Kings is a challenging film that may not work for everyone. Key details are stumbled
upon rather than splashed across the screen. The humor veers between slapstick
and dark, and Desplechin doesn’t allow sentimentality to rule even when some
emotion might be cathartic. The Queen, however, does rule, and her Kings
understand, accept, and may even secretly appreciate this.
Proof (PG-13), directed by John
Madden, is playing at Little Theatres, Pittsford Cinema | Kings and Queen, directed
by Arnaud Desplechin, is showing Saturday, October 1, at the George Eastman
House’s Dryden Theatre.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2005.
