‘Proof’ (R)

It's just one moment in the movie but it encapsulates the essence of "Proof," a thoroughly enjoyable Australian psychodrama. Sitting in a restaurant, Martin, a blind man with sunglasses and a petulant expression, stares rigidly ahead. The waitress is ignoring him. He waits motionlessly. She seems to be waiting on every table but his. He picks up his wine bottle and pours deliberately wide of the glass. He keeps pouring. The horrified waitress comes running . . .

A smirky grimness pervades this character triangle, in which three individuals (including blind man Hugo Weaving) alternately abuse and love one another. Weaving's wine trick has been observed by amused dishwasher Russell Crowe. It isn't long before the men become friends.

Weaving is, of all things, a photographer. Although he can't see his images, he appreciates their qualities by having others describe the contents of his photographs. This makes him dependent on -- and vulnerable to -- other people's testimony. Crowe, who has no friends and a lot of time, becomes Weaving's trustworthy companion, providing the photographer with accurate reports of his pictures.

The friendship is threatened by Genevieve Picot, Weaving's intelligent, attractive housekeeper, who is obsessively in love with her employer. Weaving, who has a sadistic, darkly condescending pity for Picot, treats her mercilessly. When Crowe feels an inconvenient attraction to her -- and his attentions are returned -- it leads to complications all around. Crowe suddenly has to hide things from Weaving. When Weaving unknowingly photographs Crowe (who is supposed to have been somewhere else at the time), truth becomes even harder to avoid.

There are adroit little truths everywhere, touching on blindness, cruelty, loneliness, deception and love. Writer/director Jocelyn Moorhouse has a dynamic knack for psychological twists, and for suspense in the unlikeliest of places. At one point, Crowe leaves his blind friend sitting in the car at a drive-in movie theater. Bored, Weaving searches the car and stumbles across a strip of condoms. Holding the mysterious package up to the window, he's unaware that he appears to be sleazily propositioning the carload of rednecks next to him. The impending danger is unbearable but undeniably funny.

A film about blindness could easily get maudlin or, at the other extreme, cynically heartless. Filmmaker Moorhouse manages to find an odd but satisfying niche in between. Weaving steadfastly refuses to let his blindness mar his right to be as nasty as anyone else. But it's clear that he can be reached emotionally. Tenderness lurks somewhere, not to mention a devilish sense of humor. Escaping those rednecks in the car, Weaving is obliged to take the wheel -- only to get into a car crash. Pretending to have been blinded by the impact, his eyes are checked by a medical examiner.

"You've been blind all your life," says the appalled woman.

"I know," replies Weaving.

"What were you doing driving a car?" she asks.

"I forgot," he says.