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Genius drama proves superb

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Proof is an exquisite film about a woman who struggles to come to terms with the death of her father - a brilliant mathematician - and her own extraordinary talents. It joins the likes of Amadeus and A Beautiful Mind as an outstanding movie about a mad genius.

Director John Madden teams up with Gwyneth Paltrow in their first collaboration since 1998's Shakespeare in Love. This time, they take on a deeper and darker subject: the troubled mind of a genius.

Paltrow, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Shakespeare's girlfriend, triumphs again in Proof with the best performance of her career.

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She plays a talented and attractive - but lonely - woman named Catherine who drops out of college to take care of her father Robert (Anthony Hopkins), a top-notch mathematician whose mental illness has rendered him a pitiful old man who can neither work nor take care of himself.

Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a student of Robert, strikes up a romantic relationship with Catherine. But after a brief respite from solitude and misery, Catherine sinks back into an emotional abyss, as nobody believes that she has written a groundbreaking proof that is found in one of his father's notebooks.

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Has Catherine gone mad during her struggle to emulate her father's success, or is she a genius?

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