Copyright Warner Brothers
★ ★ ★
Reversal of Fortune, directed by Barbet Schroeder, is based on the true life events of wealthy socialites Martha “Sunny” and Claus von Bülow. Sunny (portrayed by Glenn Close), who was the heiress to utilities magnate George Crawford’s and her mother’s family International Shoe Company fortunes, slipped into a coma in December of 1979. Suspicious circumstances on behalf of her husband Claus (Jeremy Irons) were aroused, but she was eventually to come out of the coma a short time following. Nearly a year later, she was found on the bathroom floor of her stately Newport, R.I. estate, again comatose with a deathly low body temperature and pulse rate. She would never awaken from this second coma and suspicious activity again on behalf of Claus eventually led to his conviction of attempted murder by result of insulin injection in 1982.
Claus would subsequently hire famed Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz (who wrote the book the film is based on) to represent him in his appeal. The appeal would be granted and during a second trial Claus was acquitted on all charges. Sunny went on to stay in a persistent vegetative state until her death 28 years later at the age of 77 in 2008; Claus is still alive and well living in London as a staple of the wealthy social scene. Due to Sunny’s massive wealth in comparison to his own and the multitude of suspicious circumstances in relation to the case, many still wonder whether or not justice was served (or averted). Jim Cramer, of Mad Money fame, was one of the law students who helped Dershowitz during the appeal and has been on record saying several times that Claus was “supremely guilty”; either way, the only two entities that can really know the truth are Claus himself and Clarendon Court, the massive Newport estate in which the circumstances occurred.
To me, this film was an instance where the source material itself is much more enticing than the film presented it. I think the case is extremely interesting and was very excited to look deeper into the circumstances surrounding the trials after watching the film; however, the film itself lost steam about midway through and meandered enough for me to drop it down in rating. Both Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons did tremendous jobs in their respective roles which, for Irons, resulted in an Academy Award for Best Actor. Ron Silver portrayed Alan Dershowitz with a certain level or vigor, but the performance sometimes went over the top and became a little melodramatic for my taste.
I thought Schroeder’s direction was handled well, though there was nothing stand out about any of the shot selections; all in all, it was fairly textbook direction for this type of film. The one unique form to the story telling schema in my opinion was having a voice over narration from Sunny in the coma describing certain parts of the story in the beginning. I thought this was an interesting and novel way to get the opinion of a character that otherwise had been silenced eternally. There were also many different interpretations of events based on different character’s alibis and opinions throughout the film that at first was a nice touch, though these became a little drawn out after we saw the same events happen about 15 times.
In conclusion, I enjoyed the film decently and don’t regret watching it, but felt that the material they had to work with could have been presented in a more entertaining manner. In relation to the actual events, it reminded me of why I decided to drop out of law school after one semester: I don’t want to be a part of any system where the truth can be altered to fit one side over the other on a technicality or fancy presentation.
notesonafilm 