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proof
Despite the scale implied by its name, the Donmar Warehouse is one of London’s smaller performing spaces, with the audience right on top of the actors, making it perfect for something as relationship-based as Proof. “The Donmar is a small, intimate space, and we had decided to strip the physical world of the play back to its essentials,” says Madden. “This had the effect of pushing the actors forward, exposing them, making them almost tangible – the front rows could literally reach out and touch them. It struck me that I kept being told how cinematic the experience was - that it felt somehow like watching a film!” The final piece in the jigsaw of Proof - which gets its premiere on the festival circuit in Venice and Toronto and opens in the US on September 16 - was the actress who played the lead role in Madden’s production of the play (a part taken on Broadway by Mary Louise Parker). Braving the London critics, who are notoriously hostile to Hollywood stars treading the West End boards, Gwyneth Paltrow had triumphed as Catherine, the daughter of a famous but mentally unstable mathematician who has put her life on hold to care for him. With the star on board, getting the film in front of the cameras was now mainly a matter of timing. “We didn’t know what schedules would allow, and John wanted to see whether it was crackable as a screenplay,” says Paltrow, who won an Oscar for her role in Shakespeare in Love. “But we were both so attached to the material and had such an amazing experience doing the play that we were determined to try and make it work as a film.” Proof is in the great tradition of American family drama - the vein mined by Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller - telling the story of the tensions, sacrifices and secrets that lie beneath the surface of family relationships. Robert (Anthony Hopkins) is a genius who, as a young man, made discoveries that changed the course of modern mathematics, but who subsequently fell victim to schizophrenia; nowadays, he is cared for by his younger daughter, Catherine (Paltrow). Catherine’s sister, Claire (Hope Davis), has long since left home, partly because she feels Catherine will always be her father’s favourite; partly because she needs to create a life of her own away from the pressure-cooker of the family. When Robert’s illness seems to be in remission and he is able to return to work, Catherine takes the chance to go to university herself (to study, of course, mathematics). But she has to return home when Robert has a relapse. Before long, she is having to deal not only with loss, but with her sister and with the presence of Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a former student of her father’s who suspects there may be further mathematical break-throughs hidden away in Robert’s legacy of 103 notebooks. “Hal goes into Robert’s house, the house of a man who has come up with the most incredible things, to search for some sanity from this man who he regards as a god,” says Gyllenhaal. “Then he loves from afar the daughter of the man he respects, until eventually he comes to terms with loving her for who she is. That’s Hal’s journey for me.” Gyllenhaal - whose career had taken in such diverse stopovers as cult classic Donnie Darko and environmental blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow - is the revelation of the movie, developing a powerful chemistry with his leading lady and handling the complexities of the part with apparent ease. “Jake is a terrific fit for this character,” says Madden. “It’s not an easy part to cast, because the actor needs to encompass the maths-geek quotient, yet play in a rock band; and he has to display an irresistible passion for the subject. Jake has a uniquely off-beat quality that covers those bases, and also brings a very particular kind of colour to the story as well - a warmth and decency that you need because of the dimensions of the betrayal for which he is inadvertently responsible in the story. I think he’s perfect for the part and the part is perfect for him.” You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to appreciate Proof. But, since maths is the underlying metaphor for the story, understanding the idea of a mathematical proof adds an extra dimension to the movie. This, of course, is not the kind of maths most of us remember from school, but an abstract reasoning process closer to philosophy than arithmetic, and dealing with some of the most complex issues of existence. “The beauty of David’s play is that, while this mathematical proof is at its core, David gives us all a break and really doesn’t force us to have to go through any rigorous mathematical equation,” says producer Sharp. “It’s elegantly woven into the drama without ever being obtrusive or off-putting.” “The proof in its primary sense - the proof of the title - refers to a mathematical formulation in which a particular conjecture or hypothesis can be proved by mathematical deduction to be true.” explains Madden. “The film sets this theoretical assumption against the world of human experience - a place where no such certainties are on offer.” |
