Jake Gyllenhaal credited as playing...
Hal
- [last lines]
- Catherine: [voice over] How many days have I lost? How can I get back to the place where I started? I'm outside a house, trying to find my way in. But it is locked and the blinds are down, and I've lost the key, and I can't remember what the rooms look like or where I put anything. And if I dare go in inside, I wonder... will I ever be able to find my way out?
- [Catherine looks up; Hal is standing in front of her]
- Catherine: Sometimes in my head I think it works, and then... Sometimes I just think it's crazy.
- Hal: There's nothing wrong with you.
- Catherine: I think I'm like my dad.
- Hal: I think you are, too.
- Catherine: I'm afraid I'm like my dad.
- Hal: You are not him.
- Catherine: Maybe I will be.
- Hal: Maybe, and maybe you'll be better.
- Catherine: It was like... connecting the dots. Some nights I could connect three or four of them, and some nights they'd be really far apart. I'd have no idea how to get to the next one, if there was the next one. It just seems really stitched together and lumpy. Dad's stuff was way more elegant.
- Hal: Talk me through it and tell me what's bothering you.
- Catherine: [voice over] If I go back to the beginning, I could start it over again. I could go line by line, try and find a shorter way. I could try to make it... better.
- Hal: It's too advanced. I don't even understand most of it.
- Catherine: You think it's too advanced?
- Hal: Yes.
- Catherine: It's too advanced for you.
- Hal: You could not have done this work.
- Catherine: But what if I did?
- Hal: Well, what if?
- Catherine: It would be a real disaster for you. Wouldn't it? You and the other geeks who barely finished their PhD's, who are marking time doing lame research, bragging about the conferences they go to. Wow. Playing in an awful band and whining that they're intellectually past it at 26, because they are!
- Hal: Well, I'm gonna be late. Some friends of mine are in this band. They're playing in a bar on Diversey, way down the bill, they go on about 2 to 2:30. I said I'd be there.
- Catherine: Great.
- Hal: They're all in the math deparment, they're really good. They have this song called 'i', you'd like it. Like lower-cased i. They just stand there and don't play anything for three minutes.
- Catherine: Imaginary number.
- Hal: It's a math joke... You see why they're way down on the bill.
- Catherine: That's a long way to drive to see some nerds in a band.
- Hal: You know, I hate when people say that. It's not really that long of a drive.
- Catherine: So, they are nerds.
- Hal: Oh, they're raging geeks. But they're geeks who, you know, can dress themselves and hold down a job at a major university. Some of them have switched from glasses to contacts. They, uh, play sports, they play in a band, they get laid suprisingly often... So, it makes you kinda question the whole set of terms. Geek, nerd, wonk, dilbert, paste eater...
- Catherine: You're in this band, aren't you.
- Hal: Ok, yes. I play the drums. You wanna come? I never sing, I swear to God.
- Catherine: You blew it. It's too bad, too, cause the rest of it was really good. "I loved your dad." "I always liked you." "I wanna spend every minute with you." That's killer stuff.
- Hal: I meant it.
- Catherine: You got laid and you got the notebook. You're a genius.
- Hal: Talk to me, Catherine. This proof is yours.