Proof (2005)

Gwyneth Paltrow plays Catherine, woman in the wake of the death of her father, a once-brilliant mathematician who struggled with, and finally succumbed to, mental illness. She's not mourning so much as quietly panicking that she, too, may be losing her mind. It doesn't help matters much that Catherine's older sister breezes into town for the funeral and promptly decides that Catherine needs looking after.

It's an emotionally draining family drama, but there's also a mystery here -- the discovery of a groundbreaking mathematical proof -- but whose is it? A good chunk of the story is told in flashbacks, so we're a bit ahead of the players in unraveling the mystery of the proof. I'm not sure whether this helped or hurt the tension...but I probably would've been pretty frustrated without them.

I do think that there could have been some humor injected into the mix. Paltrow spent most of the film wearing a furrowed brow that was a combination of worry, hurt, and confusion -- an expression I found myself to be unconsciously mimicking while watching. I ended up having to pop a couple of Excedrin.

All in all, an interesting and well-acted movie.

B+