Based on David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play, Proof is the story of a 25-year-old woman named Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) who has made tremendous sacrifices, including her own college career, to care for her mentally ill father, Robert (Anthony Hopkins). Though Robert was at one time a brilliant, esteemed mathematician, his later years render him unable to function without his daughter's assistance.
After Robert passes away, Catherine is left in a kind of strange limbo. She's a reclusive woman who finds herself uncomfortable in social situations, so she is snippy with one of her father's former students (Jake Gyllenhaal) who shows up before the funeral wanting to mine the mathematician's notebooks for nuggets of arithmetical genius.
Soon after student Hal's arrival on the scene, Catherine's sophisticated, successful and aggressive sister Claire (Hope Davis) shows up with intentions to sell their father's house and take Catherine back to New York with her. It seems Claire has become convinced that Catherine has inherited at least some amount of her father's illness, so she intends to keep a watchful eye over her.
Naturally, Catherine has no desire to leave, and matters become even more complicated when a relationship begins to emerge between her and Hal. She gives him a key to a drawer in her father's desk, where Hal discovers the most inventive and astounding mathematical proof he has seen in years. He is delighted and wishes to take steps to have the proof published under her father's name, but Catherine stuns both Hal and Claire by announcing that she is the true author. What follows is a tale that explores both the unpredictable nature of genius and the human instinct for love and trust.
Paltrow will once again be teaming with the director who brought the actress to her greatest critical acclaim and only Academy Award. John Madden, who was nominated for the Best Director Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, will direct the film, which looks almost certain to be award bait for Miramax as the season rolls around. (Kim Hollis/BOP)
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