Colin Stinton

The movie opens with Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) talking to her father Robert (Anthony Hopkins) after he startles her watching TV in the middle of the night. He gives her a bottle of champagne for her birthday, which she starts drinking from the bottle, commenting on how bad it is. They chat for a while about the nature of insanity and how he is crazy, but then she challenges his admission that he is crazy, pointing out that he had just admitted that the nature of insanity is that you can't acknowledge your own insanity. He reminds her that he's not just crazy he died last week and his funeral is tomorrow. Awoken from this dream, Catherine realizes that there is someone still upstairs -- Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a former student of Robert's. Robert was a professor in the University of Chicago's math department and Hal is a fledgling mathematician, struggling to advance in the field with any sort of developments of his own. In his younger years, Robert had made many advances in mathematics, revolutionizing the field twice before 22, and is quite famous and well regarded for it, but struggled with mental illness for the last 20+ years of his life. Catherine asks him why he is still there and he confesses that he thinks that somewhere in Robert's books of notes there has to be additional products of his mathematical genius. Catherine asks him what there has been in the notes he's made it through. Hal confirms that it was gibberish, but tells her that it would make a career for someone to find even a fraction of the advances Robert made in his early to mid twenties. She asks if he is trying to steal her father's work, and he says that, no, he would credit the discovery to her father. She demands to see his backpack and pulls it off of his back, dumping it out while trying to find any of her father's belongings. Nothing found, she apologizes and he gets ready to leave. As he's walking out the door she picks up his folded up coat from a chair, thinking he is forgetting the garment, but a notebook falls out. She yells at him, and calls the cops, but he tells her that he was going to give it to her as a present because it has something complimentary written about her in it. He leaves, and the cops pull up, but she sends them away. The next day, for the funeral, Catherine's sister Claire (Hope Davis) arrives in a town car. A huge contrast to the unkempt Catherine, Claire is an overly put together, bordering on completely neurotic New Yorker. Relations between the sisters are tense, and Catherine can't stand her sister's constant harping on appearance-related issues. Catherine is also upset that Claire didn't care for her father as much as Catherine did in his final years. Catherine's ultimately futile struggle to keep up with her own studies as her father ceases to be able to care for himself is documented in a series of flashbacks. She had started math grad school at Northwestern (Robert asks her: "You actually want to live in Evanston?") and fell behind in her coursework after she returned to check on her father and found him living amongst dirty dishes and sitting outside. He tells her that his brain is working again after the mental illness had interrupted it for a number of years, but she stays to take care of him. At the funeral, a lot of this frustration on Catherine's part comes out. She is upset at the high number of people there, in this very somber ceremony planned by others, and held in Rockefeller Chapel, a huge Gothic structure that is part of University of Chicago. She interrupts a string quartet and yells at everyone for not being there for her father while he was alive, and ends by saying she's glad her father died. After she storms out, Hal follows her and asks if she needs to be walked home. She declines his offer. Claire is set on selling Robert's house back to the University, and Catherine is upset that she will be kicked out, since this is where she's been living for the past few years. Claire wants to bring Catherine to New York, and it comes out that Catherine may be struggling with the same mental illnesses that her father struggled with. They have a wake at the house the night after the funeral, and Hal's band plays. Claire gets smashed drinking with a theoretical physicist from the University, and Catherine and Hal end up sleeping together. After they consummate their affections, Catherine is seemingly comfortable with Hal's intentions toward her family, and gives him a key to her father's desk. He goes up to the office and finds a notebook which contains a lengthy but apparently very important proof a mathematical discovery of sorts. He is very excited and shows the discovery to Catherine and Claire, saying that this discovery could get anyone tenure at any math department in the country. He asks Catherine how long she knew about this and why she didn't tell him about it. She tells him that she wrote it. This is met with silence from Hal and incredulity from Claire. The handwriting looks like Robert's, but Catherine claims it is her own. Claire pushes Hal into a corner and forces him to admit that he is somewhat doubtful that Catherine could have written the proof. She gets upset and tries to tear the book up, but Hal takes it to have people in the math department look at it and see if the proof is accurate. The next day as Claire and Catherine are packing up in separate parts of the house, Catherine suddenly goes berserk and starts throwing things before collapsing on her knees and crying. Claire comforts her and Catherine sobs "I stole it from him, I stole it from him." Claire says that it is okay and that she was living under a lot of stress with their father. Hal takes the proof to be examined by his colleagues, who believe the proof to be valid. He comes to the house as Claire and Catherine are leaving. Claire has convinced Catherine to come live in New York, and Catherine has apparently not said a word since her breakdown. Claire tells Hal to leave. He wants to see Catherine. She emerges from the house and appears completely depressed and broken. She is terse with him, but he tells her that the proof works, but that he doesn't think that her father wrote it because there is newer mathematics in it (he says it is a "hipper" proof than someone of her father's generation would have written). She is unmoved as he tells her that he thinks she wrote it and wants her to explain it to him sometime. The sisters get into a car and head to the airport. Hal sprints after the car and throws the book through the window and onto Catherine's lap. They arrive at the airport and are sitting in the terminal. In another flashback, it is revealed that after Catherine dropped out of school to care for her father he challenges her to work on math, which she does, and there are scenes of them sitting across from each other studying math books and writing. She becomes engrossed and doesn't heed his calls to come talk as promptly as she had. She is working on the proof and really was the one who wrote it. When she comes to show him, she realizes that her father has slipped back into his illness. When she walks into the room he is too excited to look at what she wants to show him, demanding that she read aloud a proof that he has written and says is ground breaking. She reads it aloud and begins crying as she does, as the "proof" is in fact complete nonsense. She locks her own proof, the truly ground breaking one, into his desk drawer, where it presumably stays until Hal discovers it, because she realizes that her father is now incapable of understanding what she has accomplished. So it seems that when she sobbed that she had stolen the proof from him, she was speaking of her guilt for doing her own work and not supporting her father as she worked on the proof. She is also troubled because she sees herself in her father, realizing that if she has his genius, then she might also slip into serious mental illness like him. Back in the airport, Catherine has begun to come to terms with her own genius and her own flaws, aided by Hal's confidence in her. She decides that she does not need to go with her sister to New York and runs out of the airport. She returns to University of Chicago, and the movie ends with her and Hal meeting up on some benches on campus and discussing the proof, as students mill around them.

Dan (Jude Law) is a young writer walking down a street in downtown London. He spots a young woman (Natalie Portman) with short red-dyed hair walking in the opposite direction and they make eye contact and begin to smile at one another. Not being used to cars driving on the left side of the road in the UK, she steps into traffic after looking the wrong way and gets hit by a car. Dan runs to her side and she looks up and says "Hello, stranger." She isn't badly hurt (aside from a bruised left knee and some cuts and bruises), and Dan takes her to the hospital where they start to get to know each other. As they're leaving the hospital, they pass by a park that Dan remembers from when he was little. They pass a wall and notice that it has the names of firemen, policemen, or anyone else who has given their life to save another person. They get on the bus and continue their conversation. We learn that Dan is a wanna-be writer who daylights as an obituary writer. The young American woman introduces herself as 'Alice Ayres'. She claims that she is a stripper from New York City who has come to London to leave a bad relationship. They finally arrive at Dan's office. He says goodbye and starts to leave and then turns around. When asked if he has a girlfriend, he says "yes". One Year Later. Dan is having his photo taken in a small artist studio by Anna (Julia Roberts). Dan and Alice are living together, and Dan has written a novel about his romantic life with Alice. Anna is taken his photo for the dust jacket of his recently published book. Anna is an American photographer who mainly takes portraits of strangers. She mentions that she likes to go to the aquarium and possibly take photos of people there. She reveals to Dan that she's currently separated from her husband. He learns that shes read his book and likes it. They kiss one another and she learns that he's got a girlfriend and the book is based on her. She ends the kiss at the point, while he's professing that he likes her a lot and needs to see her. She tells him to get over it. At this point the doorbell buzzes and its Alice, who has come to meet Dan having just gotten off her job at a local coffee shop. He lets her up to the studio where she and Anna meet (Note: Alice's hair is slightly longer and is now in its natural medium brown color). Alice asks Anna to take her photograph and Dan leaves so the two of them can be alone. She begins to take her photo and Alice reveals that she heard their conversation on the intercom when she was downstairs. She turns away and Anna begins to apologize. Alice turns back with tears in her eyes and yells at Anna to take the picture. A little later, Dan is in his apartment on his computer. He's in a sex chat room and has logged on as a woman for a joke. He meets another man on the web whose name is Larry (Clive Owen). He's a dermatologist and a sex addic logging on while at work. When he asks Dan for a name, he tells him 'Anna'. They write some hot and heavy stuff back to one another and Dan offers to meet Larry in person as a joke. He tells him to meet him at the aquarium. Larry goes there the next day and Anna is there as a coincidence. He approaches her and they discover that Dan has played a joke on him. He's embarrassed, she's amused, and they start to hit it off. Four months later. Dan and Alice are getting ready to go to Anna's art exhibition. We also learn that Dan's father has just passed away, and Dan is going to the funeral in the countryside after the art exhibition. Alice wants to go with him and support him, but he wants to be alone. They go to the exhibition and see the photo that Anna took of Alice with tears in her eyes. While Alice is looking at it, she meets Larry. They have a brief discussion where Alice and Larry have a mild flirtation, and she learns that Larry and Anna are dating when she comes over and greets Larry. During the conversation between the four of them, Dan is clearly still infatuated with Anna, and she tells him and Alice how she and Larry met, and that they call him 'cupid'. We also learn that Dan's book failed and he is once again an obituary writer. A little later, Dan puts Alice in a taxi cab outside the building, pretending that he's heading straight to the funeral, when actually he goes back to talk to Anna again. Another Year Later. Dan comes into his apartment at first telling Alice that he's been at a business dinner. Finally, he admits that he's been seeing Anna and that they've been having an affair since the evening at the art exhibition. At the same time, Anna is in her apartment with Larry. They are married now and Larry has just returned from a business trip. She doesn't tell him anything at first. Larry says he can't stand lying to her and admits that he slept with a prostitute on his trip. She simply tells him it's OK and then it comes out that she's been having an affair with Dan. Larry is furious and asks her why she bothered to marry him. She says she tried to end it with Dan when she and Larry decided to get married, but it started up again. Larry wants explicit details about her and Dan and she gives them to him. He's furious and tells her to leave. Back at Dan's apartment, Alice is heartbroken and in tears. Dan tries to comfort her and apologizes for hurting her. She leaves the apartment and he has no idea where she's gone. Six Months Later. Larry enters a strip club for a drink and he spots Alice, who's working there as a stripper wearing a skimpy top, G-string and a pink wig. He arranges a private dance with her in room. She gives him one willingly. Afterwards, she flirts and smiles and tells him her name is 'Jane Jones' as part of the act. Larry is torn up about his recent divorce proceedings from Anna and gets frustrated that Alice plays with him and won't take him seriously. He says he wants to sleep with her and she tells him "no". Then he asks for a more intimate look at her, she does what he asks. A Few Months Later. Anna is rushing to meet Dan at a music concert. She apologizes for being late. They sit to have a drink and we learn that she met Larry earlier in the day to have him sign the divorce papers. A few moments later, Dan guesses that Anna slept with Larry that day, and he was right. A flashback shows the meeting earlier, and Larry saying that he will sign the divorce papers if she'll sleep with him one last time, she agrees. Anna says she did it to end the whole thing and that all Larry got was her body. Dan is still upset. Another Few Months Later. Dan storms into Larry's office and angrily reveals that Anna has left him and is back with Larry. Dan tries to confront him and claim that this is all Larry's fault, when Larry reveals that Anna never did file the divorce papers. She is back with Larry because she's doomed to be in rocky relationships because she's a depression junky, but he loves her all the same and wants to be with her. Larry is at first angry with Dan and then begins to pity him because Dan is truly heartbroken and starts to cry. He tells Dan to go back to Alice, and Dan reveals that he doesn't know where she is. Larry tells him about the strip club and assures him that he didn't sleep with Alice when he saw her there. As Dan is leaving, Larry tells Dan that in truth, he did sleep with Alice. Dan goes to the strip club and sees Alice dancing on the stage. They both make eye contact with each other and seem to appear happy to see each other once again. Alice and Dan are in a hotel room near Heathrow Airport. They seem really happy together. She's planning to return to New York and has decided to take him with her as a treat. Alice notes that this is the day when they first met on that London street corner which was four years ago, and Dan remarks how time flies by so fast. Dan asks Alice if she slept with Larry, and she tells him that she didn't. He demands to know the truth. Eventually he leaves the room to get cigarettes and asks Alice for the truth when he gets back. He turns around on his way out and returns to Alice with a flower. She tells him that she's not in love with him anymore. She tells him she stopped loving him just now because he kept pressing about Larry. Finally she admits the truth: she and Larry did sleep together that night after they ran into each other at the strip club. Dan tells her he has known all along and has forgiven her already. He tells her that it doesn't matter and he loves her, but she's fed up and tells him to leave. She starts yelling at him and he slaps her. Shocked by this outburst of violence, Dan leaves the hotel room. Alice arrives back in New York by herself. At the same time, Dan has remained in London. He passes the park from the first day they met and notices one of the names on the wall is 'Alice Ayres'. Back in New York, when "Alice" is going through immigration, we see that her real name on her passport is Jane Jones (the name she had given Larry when he had pressed her for her real name in the strip club). Jane/Alice walks down a busy street in New York, and then she crosses a street against the "Don't Walk" signal, reminding us of the opening scene when she carelessly crossed a street in London, was struck by a taxi, and met Dan. Nonetheless, she is back in her home country, to face an uncertain future... alone.

It is Christmas 1911 and Arthur Winslow, a retired London banker, is making final preparations for a dinner to seal the engagement between his daughter Catherine, an outspoken supporter of the controversial cause of women's suffrage, and Captain John Watherstone. The family and guests are toasting the upcoming marriage when Arthur discovers that his youngest son Ronnie, a 13-year old cadet at the Royal Naval College at Osbourne, is unexpectedly home. Ronnie has been accused of the theft of a postal order. An internal enquiry, conducted without notice to his family and without benefit of representation, finds him guilty and Mr. Winslow is "requested to withdraw" his son from the college (the formula of the day for expulsion). Ronnie proclaims his innocence and his father believes him enough so that he demands an apology from the College. When the college refuses to reinstate Ronnie, Arthur decides to take the matter to court. With the help of his daughter and Desmond Curry, a solicitor and friend of the family, Mr. Winslow decides to hire the most highly sought after barrister in England at the time, Sir Robert Morton, known also to be a shrewd opposition Member of Parliament. The government is unwilling to allow the case to proceed. The Naval College is a representative of the Admiralty and the Crown, and as such British law presumes they are infallible and above question; their judgment can be legally questioned only with the permission of the Attorney General. However, after heated debates in the House of Commons, the government yields, and the case does come to court. Catherine had expected Sir Robert to decline the case, or at best to treat it as a political tool; instead, he is coolly matter-of-fact about having been persuaded of Ronnie's innocence by his responses to questioning (in fact, a form of cross-examination, to see how young Ronnie would hold up in court) in the presence of his family. Catherine, left-wing suffragette, is not so enthusiastic towards Morton who she considers too heartless for a case like this. Catherine is also disturbed by Sir Robert's establishment views: he is a conservative opponent of women's suffrage. "He always speaks out against what is right," she complains. However, she admires his legal skills. Morton on his part is obviously quite taken with her from the moment he glimpses her peering down at him from the ladies' gallery at the House of Commons. In the meantime, the case creates media hysteria and puts a heavy toll on the Winslow family their funds are rapidly depleted in order to cover legal expenses. Mr. Winslow's physical health deteriorates under the strain and the happiness of the Winslows' home is destroyed. Arthur's wife, Grace, begins to wonder if the real issue is justice or a father's stubborn and foolish pride. Forced to make economical sacrifices, Grace Winslow is unwilling to take the drastic measure of dismissing, Violet, who has been the family's maid for over twenty years. The eldest son, Dickie Winslow, has to leave Oxford due to the lack of money destroying his chance of a career in the Civil Service. Instead, he is compelled to find employment in his father's bank. Catherine's marriage settlement is also gone. Her fiancé John Watherstone breaks off the engagement in the face of opposition from his father (an Army Colonel), forcing her to consider a sincere and well-intentioned offer of marriage from Desmond, whom she does not love. Sir Robert has also declined appointment as Lord Chief Justice, rather than drop the case. The least affected is Ronnie, who happily has been transferred to a new school. At trial, Sir Robert (working together with Desmond Curry and his firm) is able to discredit much of the supposed evidence. The Admiralty, certainly embarrassed and presumably no longer confident of Ronnie's guilt, abruptly withdraws all charges against him, proclaiming the boy entirely innocent. When their resounding victory arrives, not a single member of the Winslows' family is present at court. It is Violet, the maid, who tells Mr. Winslow and Catherine what had happened at court. Shortly after, Sir Robert appears in the Winslows' home to share the good news. The film ends with a suggestion that romance may yet blossom between Sir Robert and Catherine, who acknowledges that she has misjudged him all along.