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PROOF
 By Rachel Deahl Review Film Critic Math isn't often thought of as a sexy topic. And this seems doubly so in Hollywood. Writers, rock stars, artists, explorers, politicians, even the occasional scientist: These are the guys who get the biopics and the marquee placement.
Now, in "Proof," a stagy
adaptation of David Auburn's celebrated play of the same name, an
attempt is being made to right that wrong. And, though director John
Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") isn't able to fully lift the film
above its theatrical roots (or properly erase them), his "Proof" does
finally give the mathematician his due.
Furthermore, at its best, it wonderfully
illuminates math as art and shows how numbers can express the human
condition as fully and beautifully as words on a page, notes on sheet
music or brush stokes on a canvas.
tarring as a housebound, unhinged
daughter of a brilliant mathematician, Gwyneth Paltrow is
particularly whiny as the mood-swinging Catherine. After her father, a
beloved giant-in-his-field-type who went insane in his final years,
dies, Catherine tries to stave off depression and an abiding fear of her
own precarious mental state.
In the opening scene Paltrow is visited
by the ghost of her dead father (Anthony Hopkins), in what plays
out as a poorly structured "set the scene" exchange-dad talks about his
own psychological troubles, his spirit-status and then gives his
daughter a pep talk to convince her she's not crazy like he was.
The question of Catherine's insanity
becomes one of the central themes in the film as two characters descend
on the suburban Chicago home Paltrow's mopey twenty-seven-year-old has
been holed up in.
First there's Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal),
a grad student who had been an advisee of Catherine's dad. Hoping to
sift through the man's remaining notebooks-most of which are full of
meaningless scribbles and incoherent ramblings-Hal comes and goes in the
house attempting to woo Catherine in the process. Then there's
Catherine's shrewish older sister, Claire (Hope Davis), who's
flown in from New York and is aiming to quickly sell the house and drag
Catherine to Manhattan with her.
As Catherine erupts into a succession of
angry outbursts-they're aimed intermittently at the big sister who
selfishly left her alone to care for their father as he sank deeper into
and her new boyfriend, who seems motivated both by a genuine interest in
Catherine as well as a desire for access to her father's final stack of
notebooks-a brilliant proof is uncovered. Shut away in a drawer of her
father's study, the proof-which is touted as one of the most
groundbreaking mathematical works ever written-becomes the center of a
battle that uncovers the secrets of both Catherine and her father's
past.
Set up as a mystery about the authorship
of the titular mathematical work-after Catherine claims she wrote the
proof, both the audience and other characters are forced to question
who's responsible for the brilliant mathematics at hand-the film is
driven by a deliciously unfamiliar scenario. And it's truly the numbers,
which are the star throughout. That the numbers are used to explore a
familiar story-a child trying to emerge from her parent's shadow-is what
gives "Proof" its meat.
At one point in the film Catherine, who
was studying mathematics at Northwestern before she left to care for her
dad, shows her professor a proof she'd been working on instead of the
assigned homework. The frustrated prof looks over the little blue
booklet and tells her that math isn't jazz.
But, of course, it is.
And that's what "Proof"
demonstrates in its best moments: That math can be creative,
boundary-pushing riffs on the status quo, an opera of numbers.
Grade: B THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE  There are certain topics that, for better and worse, are forever associated with one iconic film; some rightfully so and others less so. It's fitting that swimming in shark-infested waters and being stabbed in the shower respectively belong to "Jaws" and "Psycho."
Less appropriate, perhaps, is the
automatic association of exorcism with a young Linda Blair
levitating and spewing green vomit in William Friedkin's 1973
blockbuster "The Exorcist - which is why it's admirable that "The
Exorcism of Emily Rose," a courtroom drama/thriller based on an
actual trial, attempts to mount its own, subtle path to depicting
demonic possession.
That the film fails at being either scary
or subtle may point to a reality that Friedkin's film should have
already taught us: There aren't a whole lot of unsurprising, or
understated, ways to film a good old-fashioned exorcism.
One of the interesting things about "The
Exorcist" is that it's a film very much of its era. Which is to say
that, as one of the first films to usher in the blockbuster age of
Hollywood-because it drew such significant crowds, like "The Godfather"
before it, the film confirmed the belief of studio heads that a movie
could become a cultural event, if opened on enough screens nationwide,
and make an unprecedented profit.
Ironically though, if you go back to "The
Exorcist" now it seems hokey and overdone. Though Friedkin went to great
lengths to give the film a dignity and pace more befitting a drama than
a cheap slasher flick (note the tell-tale "artsy" shot of Sydow under
the lamp in beautiful black and white that served as the poster for the
film), the heart and soul of the film-the built-up showdown between Max
Von Sydow's priest and Blair's fiendishly possessed little girl-has not
aged well. In our age of computer-generated special effects and
heightened screen violence, Blair's caked on make-up and head-spinning
looks like something that was done, well, in the '70s.
While many people still find "The
Exorcist" a horrifying film, what it lacks for this reviewer, is
something every great horror movie must have: The ability to play off
the fears of its audience. It doesn't make me believe in the possibility
of a relative being invaded by Satan the way "Jaws" makes me not want to
go into the ocean. Spielberg's shot of those kicking legs, right before
the shark bites, still makes you go stiff because it highlights the
horrible, unforeseen terror that lurks in our everyday surroundings.
There could always be a crazed psychopath lying in wait to pull our own
shower curtain back, or a shark about to emerge from the dark deep
waters below our own kicking feet.
Ironically "Emily Rose" director
Scott Dickerson seems to understand this. As a director he shows an
aptitude for drumming up fear in his audience by lingering on seemingly
innocuous images: leaves on the ground, a ticking clock, a cross.
They're all familiar shots but early on, they work well here recalling
the early shots, of course, from "The Excorcist" itself.
Unfortunately "Emily Rose" fumbles in its
attempt to both set itself apart from "The Exorcist" and mimic its best
qualities.
Filmed as a courtroom drama-a Godless
high-powered attorney (Laura Linney) is hired to represent a
priest (Tom Wilkinson) accused of murder after a supposedly
failed exorcism results in the death of a teenage girl (Jennifer
Carpenter)-the movie gets mired in an uninteresting mysticism vs.
science back and forth.
As Linney tries to mount a convincing
defense, the strange and depressing saga of the titular girl's case is
told through flashback. Despite the sometimes-disturbing scenes of a
contorted and screeching Carpenter (who almost one-ups Blair in her
knack for channeling the demonic on screen), "Emily Rose" is finally
thoughtful when it needs to be cheap and pious when it needs to be
campy.
It expends all of its resources on
mounting a believable story that it fails to make an interesting or
frightening one.
Grade: C |
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