Proof

Film Threat Phil Hall

Paltrow gives the performance of the year, and perhaps of her career, in this extraordinary and powerful dissection of genius, jealousy, madness and serenity.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

An extraordinary thriller... The film centers on two remarkable performances, by Gwyneth Paltrow and Hope Davis.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's so fluid and cinematic that it's hard to even envision how the piece worked on stage.

Time Richard Corliss

Proof is on the side of the lost, blessed souls. Paltrow, as alluring and reassuring as ever, emphasizes the blessedness in the isolation of genius, giving a new dimension to a complex role. New, true and thrilling--she is the Catherine that Proof was waiting for.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The material is intellectual, but the treatment is not. Proof is a stirring motion picture that challenges our views on a great many things about life, some of which we take for granted. And, by opening up the play, Madden has made it less talky and more cinematic without losing the quintessential elements that made it such a success on stage.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Tasteful, thoughtful fare that entertains without ever speaking down to the audience.

Variety David Rooney

But despite less-than-ideal casting of the male roles, and a tendency to soften the Pulitzer Prize-winning work's thorny humor with a more sober tone, director John Madden has woven together an elegant, intelligent drama of a breed increasingly rare in mainstream American movies.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Against considerable odds and despite a shaky start, Proof proves itself in every area.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

But at its highest level of ambition, Proof fails to deliver. The film becomes a psychological whodunit where Catherine is shown to be either a martyr to her father or else his intellectual equal. None of it is terribly convincing.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Proof proves undeniably that the intimacy of a stage play can be re-created powerfully on screen.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Hopkins plays "Hopkins," and the buff, terribly miscast Gyllenhaal will be convincing only to viewers who've never set foot on a university campus. What makes it worth seeing, however, is the extraordinary chemistry between the atypically raw and unguarded Paltrow and Davis, a fabulously talented actress once again testing her range with a performance unlike any she's given in the past.

Miami Herald Christine Dolen

Very, very faithful to Proof the play.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Once you get past that golden swag and curtain of hair, Paltrow's performance is devastating, cutting to the pith and marrow of parent-child relations. The other actors in this stagebound movie fare less well.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Proof is proof that you can drain most of the juice out of a play and still have an enjoyable night at the movies.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The source material has undergone some sentimental softening, though Hope Davis, as the heroine's sister, does a swell job of making sanity seem obnoxious.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

To play for an audience of one that is only a few feet away is different in concentration and shade from playing in the theater, and Madden, though the script lags a bit, has nonetheless helped his actors to render what were once theater scenes as film sequences.

Washington Post Nelson Pressley

Paltrow is pretty commanding, even if Madden pushes things toward airlessness by keeping the camera so tight.

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

Its characters are complex and engaging, its central mystery pulls the action forward at a clip, and the performances by Paltrow and Davis are excellent. At the same time, it's a little too slick.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Gwyneth Paltrow is triumphant in this somewhat derivative and overly stage-bound film.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Hopkins' increasing disconnection with his fellow actors and the material nearly sabotages Proof, an otherwise-respectable adaptation of David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

Engrossing.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

In Proof, Paltrow plays yet another young woman who is being gnawed at by termites of instability, only this time out, her performance, rather than startling, is merely competent: earnest and overly familiar.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

You never believe that Paltrow's character is insane, even when she herself does. She has too sturdy a core.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

Loses something in its translation to celluloid.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The result, like so many stout travellers from stage to screen, is respectable. Stolidly, bloodlessly, yawningly respectable.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Who knew a drama about numbers could be so thrilling?

New York Post Kyle Smith

Proof will put a lot of viewers right back where they left off in 12th-grade calculus: asleep.

Empire Anna Smith

Paltrow does an excellent job as the shy loner, affecting youthful, sulky mannerisms without resorting to stereotype. Anthony Hopkins, meanwhile, brings both gravitas and dark humour as Catherine's mentally ill father, while Jake Gyllenhaal makes for an effective, if buff, maths geek.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A goopy Gwyneth Paltrow movie.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Proof isn't just a movie about mathematics; it's a mathematical movie. The scenes may as well have been laid out by diagram.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Madden honors the play's roots; he has not made the mistake of opening it up with a lot of obvious visual expansions. But the story's genial unpretentiousness has been darkened and weighed down, and what's left is less than prime.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

The image of Gwyneth Paltrow looking anguish-stricken has become such a cinematic meme that it hardly bodes well for Proof that it opens with this sight.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Madden directed Paltrow in the play on the London stage, but he does his "Shakespeare in Love" goddess no favors by filling the screen with big close-ups that betray the theatrical origins of the piece and drain the movie of life and urgency. Proof hasn't been filmed at all -- it's been embalmed.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

What ensues is a devout communal effort, tricked out with various hops through time and space, to make us forget that it was a piece of theatre in the first place. Needless to say, the attempt is in vain.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

John Madden's competent, monotonous film version, not exactly stagebound but hardly freewheeling, only underscores its mechanical nature.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

I wish I could report the arrival of an impressive movie, but this one, for all its ostensibly big ideas about mathematics and wounded minds, struck me as an elaborate pretext for a synthetic love story.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

It's funny how movies about smart people often play so dumb.