MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Proof ‘ an Unsettling, Sharp Debut

“Proof” is a pleasantly twisted little picture that has the kind of off-center impact money can’t buy. A sharp and self-confident debut for Australian writer-director Jocelyn Moorhouse, it takes an unlikely protagonist and involves him in curious, darkly comic situations leading to a graceful conclusion. Not at all bad for a film that came in well under a million dollars.

Blind since birth but a passionate photographer, Martin (Hugo Weaving) is an abrupt, angry man with a deep-seated grudge against the world. He wields his cane like an attack weapon and when a waitress ignores him in a restaurant, he empties a bottle of wine on the table to get her attention. Definitely not a happy camper.

Martin’s sole human contact appears to be the acerbic Celia (Genevieve Picot). Nominally his housekeeper, she is also his merciless partner in an endless series of mutually tormenting and humiliating mind games that revolve around the attraction she feels for him that he apparently is not interested in returning.

Quite by accident, Martin meets Andy (Russell Crowe), a cheerful dishwasher who appears to be everything the blind man is not: easygoing, guileless, always ready to have some fun. They tentatively become friends and even go on some adventures together, a wild and anarchic night at the local drive-in being an especially funny example.

Martin has been taking pictures since he was a boy and began to suspect that his mother was lying to him about the world. It’s an occupation that baffles Andy, to whom Martin explains that the photographs serve as proof, “proof that what I sensed is what you saw through your eyes--the truth.” Ever suspicious, Martin is dependent on people he can trust to describe the photos to him, and, a bit uncertain at first, Andy agrees to take on the job.

Not surprisingly, this does not sit well with Celia, and the working out of the Martin-Celia-Andy triangle is what “Proof” is all about. Writer-director Moorhouse, who shares a cheerful bleakness of attitude with fellow Australian Jane Campion, not only knew what she wanted here but also exactly how to go about achieving it.

Moorhouse’s distinctive script has more than the carefully thought-out tightness of a top-drawer short story: It also creates characters who have the capacity to surprise because Moorhouse wouldn’t dream of limiting the range of emotional connections open to them. The understated but exceptional acting she has coaxed out of her cast is indispensable to the film’s success, as is Martin McGrath’s super-bright photography and an unnerving score from the celebrated Australian group, Not Drowning, Waving.

But despite its modest dimensions, what makes “Proof” (at the NuWilshire and Beverly Center Cineplex, rated R for sensuality and language) a memorable enough film to have won seven Australian Film Institute Awards is the number of themes it pointedly touches. A film about trust, love and control, about the differences between truth and reality and the risks you run when you leave yourself open to intimacy, “Proof” aims to unsettle--and unsettle it very definitely does.

‘Proof’

Hugo Weaving: Martin

Genevieve Picot: Celia

Russell Crowe: Andy

Heather Mitchell: Mother

A Fine Line Features release. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse. Producer Lynda House. Screenplay Jocelyn Moorhouse. Cinematographer Martin McGrath. Editor Ken Sallows. Costumes Ccerri Barrnett. Music Not Drowning, Waving. Production design Patrick Reardon. Set decorator Dimity Huntington. Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (sensuality and some language).