ake an Academy Award-wining actress, a knighted co-star, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and a celebrated director. The result? Some very high expectations, to say the least. That's certainly the case for Proof. The film, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins, is a reunion of sorts between the actress and director John Madden (the pair weaved Oscar gold in 1999 with Shakespeare in Love). The story is familiar territory for the two: Madden also directed Paltrow in the London stage production to rave reviews (not surprising for a play that also won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama).

  Proof is the story of Catherine (Paltrow), a young woman who has abandoned her studies to care for her mentally ill father Robert (Hopkins), a former mathematical genius. When Catherine has to deal with the arrival of her long-absent and overbearing sister Claire (Hope Davis), as well as the romantic advances from a former student of her father (Jake Gyllenhaal), she is forced to question how much of her father's madness-or genius-she will inherit.


  Between the stage production and the start of shooting for the film, Paltrow lost her own father, Bruce Paltrow, in 2002. Madden suggests that Paltrow's performance as Catherine may resonate more strongly this time around as a result. "It's true to say that the piece is quite astonishingly under Gwyneth's skin," says the director. "I think she breathes it in a way that would be tough to do if you hadn't inhabited that skin for as long as she has. She has such an instinctive fragility which is essential for the role and an ability to pull people inside her. I think the subtlety of the observation, the depth of the involvement and identification with the character is extraordinary."

  While the passing of her father (who directed her in Duets) will continue to be
a loss for Paltrow, her choice to feed her grief into her performance may help make Proof a rewarding cinematic experience. Perhaps Paltrow and Madden will be experiencing déjà vu come Oscar time.

- Dimetre Alexiou