There exist two versions of the play Proof by David Auburn – one of them is the critically-acclaimed stage production that brought out themes of identity and grief, both for the loss of a loved one, and the impending loss of your own abilities. The other is the film adaptation, directed by John Madden, who sought to recapture the spirit of the original play by making a prestige film that sees him taking on the story through collaborating with a talented cast, in the hopes that this moving story would be brought to a much wider audience. Unfortunately, something happened during the process of moving this story from the stage to the screen, and instead of the subtle, intricate story about a woman trying to come to terms with her father’s death in the wake of her own deteriorating mental state, we received an overwrought, pedestrian melodrama that hides behind pedigree in an attempt to conceal the fact that is hopelessly mediocre, a failed attempt at not only making a supposedly intelligent drama about serious issue, but yet another misguided adaptation that might take the general themes of the original, but loses all the heart and impact that came along with it, replacing it with an impressive cast and the production values not normally offered when produced on stage.

Proof is a film I have absolutely no qualms in calling a dismal failure – there’s just something so unlikeable about this film, which isn’t helped in any way by the fact that is it relentlessly inane in its approach to some very serious themes, treating them with a flippancy rarely ever witnessed. It isn’t clear exactly where Proof fails – in many ways, it feels like an extraordinary achievement in the art of getting absolutely everything wrong, which is impressive considering how much potential this film had to be good, or at the very least decent enough to warrant some level of acclaim. Looking at all the elements in which this film goes wrong is torturous, because everything that underpins it suggests that it would be a lot better than this, and instead of something that actually lives up to the high standard promised by the story and the cast devolves into a frustrating bundle of missed opportunities to be something brilliant. There’s no point in trying to defend this film and justify some of its choices because the pedigree should have really amounted to something that wasn’t quite as uncompromisingly lifeless as this ended up being.

Adapted from the critically-acclaimed play of the same title, the film is focused on Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow), a young woman who is grieving after the loss of her father a few days before. Robert (Anthony Hopkins) was a brilliant mathematician who dedicated his life to furthering the science and contributing to a variety of fields where his expertise was greatly appreciated. However, in the latter stages of his life, his mind started to decay, resulting in his work being diminished, and his genius seemingly coming to an end. However, when his protege, Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) finds a notebook that contains a mathematical proof that answers a question scientists have been asking for an immeasurable amount of time, it becomes clear that even in death, Robert is extremely influential and can make significant contributions to the field he loved. The problem is that Robert didn’t actually construct the proof – it was Catherine, who had inherited an immense amount of her father’s talents, but not his confidence or work ethic. The authorship of the work is called into question, and the oscillation between believing it to be the work of deceased genius or his unstable daughter starts to impact the mental wellness of his daughter and erode his legacy, which takes its toll on everyone.

There really isn’t any excuse for Proof to have been as mediocre as it actually was – it was adapted by Rebecca Miller, whose father was almost unquestionably the most important American playwright of his generation, and directed by John Madden, whose work has been consistent, even at its most pedestrian. The cast was composed of well-known performers employed to interpret these fascinating roles, in a piece that was driven solely by the characters and their interactions, making this a project any actor would pounce on. So, considering everything this film had going for it, where exactly did it fall apart? Perhaps we can look at how it uses the source material, bringing it to the screen. An inherent problem with these stage-to-film adaptations is that there is very little room to manoeuvre when it comes to telling the story, and a play like Proof (which consists of only four characters) is a notoriously dense play, relying solely on the characters to make the sometimes impenetrable subject matter not only understandable but also fascinating. This play was never written to appeal only to a small group of viewers who understand the concepts at the core, but a wider audience who immerse themselves in a world they may not fully understand at the outset, but through Auburn’s beautiful prose, come to appreciate it.

The play is remarkable in this regard – the same can’t be said for the film, which condescends the audience to the point where it becomes unbearable. There is a membrane this film forms between the story and the audience, in which pretention is conveyed as profundity, and where we are led to believe what we are seeing actually harbours meaning, when in actuality, its just an excuse to toss out some jargon in the hopes that most viewers will be too focused on the central drama to actually pay attention to anything going on around it. The small details don’t seem to bear any consequence on this film, and while it never demanded to be a perfectly-constructed journey into the world of mathematics, but it wouldn’t hurt to actually pay attention to how the audience will receive it. Proof is not the first film to take on more challenging subject matter, and if we can praise it in any way, it would be regarding the fact that it never feels the need to ignore the intelligent concepts that its built on – the difference is that this film was deluded enough to believe that audiences just want to see the machinations of a group of intellectuals, without actually ever feeling included in the discussion. The key is not to make the audience feel as if those they are watching are geniuses, but we ourselves are. We want to feel enlightened or moved by the story, rather than turned away by overly technical dialogue and an approach to subjects that are already difficult as they stand.

It also doesn’t help that Proof is tonally presented in a way that goes against much of what made the stage production so successful. What was initially a minimalistic, character-driven drama about a group of people coming to terms with a difficult change, set to the disconcerting tune of a world that keeps turning while we struggle to move on, has evolved into a melodramatic, excessive familial drama that tries so extremely hard to shoehorn romance into a story that has absolutely no place for it. The original play does contain the same relationship quandaries between Catherine and Hal, but not to the point where it starts to detract from the more important parts of the story. This is yet another way Proof patronizes the audience – the dense subject matter is counteracted by interludes where we see how these characters, despite their intelligence and obsession with numbers and other intangible concepts, are essentially ordinary people themselves – they fall in love, go shopping and even perform in rock bands (a sub-plot with a significance I’ll never quite understand) – “mathematicians, they’re just like us!”. It is ambitious to think that audiences want to see a film that justifies difficult concepts – whether those of the academic or psychological sort – with forays into showing how everyone is essentially the same. It’s a lovely sentiment and one that needed more work because while it is admirable that they wanted to explore it, they never put any real effort into it.

Despite the flaws, at least the performances are decent – this would at least be the expectation. You’d not be wrong to think assembling a cast like this would at least be something worth seeing, and that regardless of how weak the story is, they’ll be bolstered by the actors. You’d also be gravely mistaken because there’s not a good performance to be found anywhere in Proof. Gwyneth Paltrow leads the cast, and makes use of her endearing charm to convince us to the character’s plight, which is the only option, because her performance itself doesn’t do anything other than giving her the opportunity to dial it up all the way to eleven, giving one of the most ludicrous performances of her entire career. I wasn’t quite sure what Paltrow was doing in this film, but her intensity was entirely misguided, and instead of constructing a woman trying her best to come to terms with some very difficult events, she becomes shrill and disoriented, which is only further worsened by her work here requiring a complete lack of subtletly. The rest of the cast is not quite as excessive as her, but they’re also not particularly good either. Jake Gyllenhaal suffers the worst fate a character like his could possibly encounter – he’s a one-dimensional love interest that is developed as if he has even an iota of personality. Everyone other than Paltrow’s character is just a plot device, and Gyllenhaal is the worst of them. Hopkins has never been quite as badly used as he was here as the deceased father, shown in flashbacks as he slowly starts deteriorating, apparently being a genius, but displayed as nothing other than a bundle of archetypes. At least Hopkins and Gyllenhaal were giving something to do – the same can’t be said for Hope Davis, who exists solely to be a source of frustration. If anyone deserved better, it most certainly is her. Yet, it only makes sense that the one area in which Proof should’ve succeeded is just as ill-fated as the rest of the film. If you’re going to tarnish a great piece, why not go for the royal flush while you’re at it?

There is nothing about Proof that really deserves to be praised, especially because it essentially just coasts off the success of its source material, so we can’t even credit it for being an intelligent approach to difficult subjects. What should’ve been one of the most fascinating and insightful character-driven dramas turns into a saccharine, overly-dramatic family saga that just never relents when it comes to the excess. It is poorly written (which is shocking, considering the background of the person who wrote it), reckless in the directing, and featuring a quartet of great actors who have rarely been this badly-used. It isn’t even that Proof is a bad film – it is perfectly passable, and is a mere distraction – its that it had the potential to be brilliant, and had it been executed with more nuance and an understanding that the story on its own was good enough as it was, perhaps we would’ve been spared this convoluted, disconcerting excuse for a profound glimpse into human existence. This is, unfortunately, a low point in the careers of everyone involved, as as much as we can try and justify it and find merits, the simple fact is that there’s really nothing about this film that should be praised. Had it not featured numerous prestigious individuals in its involvement, perhaps it could be excused for its shortcomings. However, its laziness and inability to understand how to tell such a story without resorting to this manufactured sentimentality that tries to fool us into believing what we are seeing isn’t a contrived disarray of pseudo-intellectual ideas. It doesn’t work, and the result is a film that just cannot find it within itself to be good in any palpable way, leading to nothing but utter disappointment. The tagline of this film is “the biggest risk in life is not taking one” – I beg to differ because watching this film seems a much bigger risk to one’s sanity and wellbeing.