Hopkins' Otherness

First up: The movie Proof, (2005) with Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins. I am not a big Paltrow fan, (I think she is a bit simpy) and I did not actually see the play by David Auburn on which the film itself is based, but the quality of the production transcends these issues, because the film is about doubt (much as the film version of Doubt was supposed to be and wasn't) about the nature of certainty, and never having the right answer, and what brilliance in quest of solutions actually costs, and what our fears of dissolution actually amounts to. Hopkins is as usual fantastic as the crinkled old man still trying to be relevant within his own self-importance, but vacant in the places where his daughter Catherine would have been better served if he could have fulfilled his role as a father, and Paltrow gets it down as the angry kid who makes too many sacrifices, and isn't quite as healthy as the preppy police would like--the role filled here by the older sister Claire, a nearly perfect foil played by Hope Davis.

Is it okay to be crazy? The film asks this, and simply offers the dichotomy between institutionalization and personal care without offering its audience any pat solutions on the matter. I'll continue on with this and tie it in with the same set of conflicts within the disability movement in my next post.