 Reversal of Fortune (1990) What in anyone else's hands would have been a textbook courtroom suspense thriller here is turned inside out numerous times, constantly shifting perspectives and theories to ensure that you have greater doubts about your understanding of the events than you had going in. The beginning sets the tone, with Sunny narrating the film for ten solid minutes from her "persistent vegetative coma" state, recapping the basics of Claus's trial … in essence, concisely offering what would have been the entire movie had it played by the usual Hollywood rules. But Schroeder isn't interested in the facts so much as how the facts can create differing perceptions, so instead of simply giving us a big dramatized trial, he focuses on von Bülow's attorney, Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) and his team of assistants as they pore over the evidence and struggle with their own moral objections to pursuing the case. Sly and seductive, the film draws you in with teasing revelations of the von Bülows' strange lifestyle, tempering the dry humor with Paper Chase-style cheerleading for the legal profession. I wish I weren't, but I'm a sucker for films about sharp lawyers finding excellent loopholes. I have a greater appreciation for this since being acquitted of manslaughter charges on a technicality (my lawyer managed to convince the jury that my review of "Suddenly Susan," while certainly murderous in tone, was not technically murder). Irons and Close are outstanding, playing the von Bülows with a careful mixture of reality and high camp. Both get a few moments of hilariously dark comedy, which could easily be misconstrued as over-the-top if you're not hip to the director's oddball sense of humor. It keeps things from becoming drearily melodramatic. Ron Silver is spot-on as Alan Dershowitz, and it's really his story, though the scenes with Irons and Close more directly fulfull your programmed-moviegoer expectations for brilliant performances. Fisher Stevens is fantastically, elusively creepy as a sketchy drug-dealer type. The ending leaves things as unresolved as can be, a refreshing thing for a mainstream movie past like 1980. And a tacked-on coda (featuring Irons as Claus sending up his "Dracula"-style image) is pure genius, reinforcing that this has not been a drama or a thriller. This scene explicates the intentionally comedic tone that is really Reversal's lifeblood throughout. It's not nearly as subversive as Schroeder's earlier films (of which I have seen one), but Reversal of Fortune dashes convention at every turn, consistently distracting you from its subtle wit with the disguise of supposed drama. You have to pay close attention to notice that it's not just a typically big and empty piece of Oscar®-bait, but the effort is rewarded in finding the hip weirdness beneath.
Review by La Fée |