Buy it... if you'd enjoy a creative combination of James Horner's rhythms from A Beautiful Mind for a crazed mathematician and Stephen Warbeck's own layered strings from Shakespeare in Love.

Avoid it... if you find fault in the elements described above, or have adverse reactions to minimalistic piano-dominated underscore.

Warbeck

Proof: (Stephen Warbeck) While it is very tempting to compare Proof, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Auburn, to Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind from four years ago, the two films differ in that A Beautiful Mind was about a crazy mathematician whereas Proof is about the daughter of a crazy mathematician. Both films reflect the tortured tales of how the madness of the mathematician affects the family around him, and both handle dementia in an extremely intelligent fashion. Launched from its success on stage, Proof received some worthy critical responses on film, although many have said that some of the theatrical flare has been lost in the film version. Director John Madden has experienced success before, and it was his teaming with Gwyneth Paltrow and composer Stephen Warbeck that assisted his success with Shakespeare in Love, including some controversial Academy Awards. The comfortable relationship between director and composer has led to a score for Proof that serves as an interesting combination of Shakespeare in Love and A Beautiful Mind in its thematic structure. For A Beautiful Mind, James Horner adapted an almost maddening, but sharp rhythmic progression that he had used in several other scores and refined it to its most beautiful and dense form for moments when the mathematician's mind was calculating at full speed. Warbeck doesn't have the Hornerisms to work with, nor does he have the voice of a rising, young opera star to grace the cover of the soundtrack, but he perhaps confirms that Horner's theme for A Beautiful Mind may have established the permanent standard by which all themes for future insane mathematicians on the screen should be crafted. The technique, interestingly, works once again, and is this time tempered by some of the softer strings of Warbeck's usual variety and a touch of minimalism for much of the score for Proof.

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The most interesting aspect of Warbeck's variation on Horner's design is the stark change in instrumentation. Warbeck employs an electric guitar, bass guitar, and marimbas to create the underlying rhythmic style that he seems to have already preferred in Shakespeare in Love. Those instrumentation choices work with fascinating success, and perhaps Warbeck figured that marimbas and electric guitars would be the kind of sounds that would plague the confused mind of a brilliant person fading in and out of lucidity. Their unique sound is not only a departure for Warbeck, but also serves to distinguish this score from the inspirational Horner entry in the genre. What Warbeck does revert to is the heavily layered strings that produced so much appeal in Shakespeare in Love. He does seem to love his heavy string themes, for they do eventually prevail over the guitars and marimbas in the performance of that rhythm in the opening and closing cues. The tonal strings continue to define much of the underscore, along with several cues of pleasant piano contemplations. There are lengthy sequences of underscore that play to the spirit of Michael Nyman or Philip Glass, with minimalist tendencies that hold the listener in anticipation of the next restatement of the guitar and marimba rhythm. The score for Proof is well balanced, providing solid restatements of every idea throughout, and it is this consistency that makes the music so effective. That said, the rhythmic portions, while they will be the major point of attraction for some listeners, could also try the patience of some listeners; the final cue, "Line by Line," is an extended and dense variation on this theme, and it will like make or break the album for you. Overall, Warbeck takes the score in a direction that nobody could have predicted, and with that move, makes Proof an interesting discussion point at the least. But be weary of its influences; if you found fault in the rhythms of A Beautiful Mind or the string themes of Shakespeare in Love, then Proof could prove unnerving. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Stephen Warbeck reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29 (in 7 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.3 (in 8,899 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.