Some Drivel On...Presumed Innocent

I have not read Scott Turow’s 1987 novel on which Alan J. Pakula’s 1990 film version of “Presumed Innocent” is based, but by all accounts, it was a book told from the perspective of its main character, Rozat “Rusty” Sabich, a county prosecutor assigned the case involving the murder of assistant prosecutor Carolyn Polhemus with whom he had an affair. That sounds like a classic case of an unreliable narrator, but Pakula’s version only begins and ends with a voiceover from Rusty (Harrison Ford), forgoing any inner monologues in-between, meaning that ultimately, we are not inside the character’s head but standing just outside of it. And while the opening image of an empty jury box seems to essentially establish us as the jury, hearing out the case as “Presumed Innocent” nimbly tracks the investigation, and then the trial, and then the aftermath, Pakula is stacking the deck, deliberately withholding information in order to craft a suspense movie as much a courtroom drama. That is not to suggest “Presumed Innocent” is flashy, or even salacious. In fact, strange as it might sound, the key scene between Rusty and Carolyn (Greta Scacchi) is as tragic as it is sexy, emblemizing the former’s fall from grace, as well as Pakula’s keen visual storytelling. It’s not anything fancy, necessarily, the direction, but so much framing and staging throughout the two-hour-and-seven-minute run time conveys a sense of either getting closer to the truth or further away from it. And though the average shot length might in general feel like an eternity to our overstimulated modern eyes, the shot length when we first see Carolyn, still stands out. The most thrilling moment in the whole movie was when I expected a cut away from her then...it didn’t come.

If literally a good chunk of “Presumed Innocent” takes place in the courtroom, figuratively an even bigger chunk of it takes place in the grey areas of the law. That’s because of the nebulous ethics in Rusty manning this investigation, but also because Rusty’s boss (Brian Dennehy) is in the middle of an election and determined to put the ballot first and because Detective Lipranzer (John Spencer) co-running the investigation comes across willing to put his friendship with Rusty first. Indeed, when Rusty asks Lipranzer if he might, ahem, lose the record of Carolyn’s phone call to his house, editor Evan A. Lottman chooses a close-up of Spencer, mouth open, struggling to process what he has been asked in real time. That look of Spencer’s also denotes how “Presumed Innocent” is chock full of fine performances underlining the movie’s grey areas. As Rusty’s defense attorney, Raul Julia comes across like a suave version of Robert Duvall in “A Civil Action,” bemused by the finer points of the law and how it can be deployed. As the judge overseeing the trial, Paul Winfield might give the deftest performance of all. That’s saying something considering the character, somehow both direct and verbose at once, could merely have been a black robed stereotype. Winfield, however, imbues the part with a deeper knowledge of the law than anyone else in the room and a deeper respect too. No performance is more important, though, than Bonnie Bedelia as Rusty’s long-suffering wife Barbara, effusing the exhaustion at holding the family together and the frustration at trying to stake out her own career.

Ford, meanwhile, initially seems to embody the Everyman type he had started to play in the 80s and would more or less give himself over to completely in the 90s, never more famously than “The Fugitive.” In that sensational 1993 version of the TV show, Ford’s Dr. Richard Kimble might have been found guilty of killing his wife, but we know he’s innocent because Ford innately projects that innocence. He might project it, too, in “Presumed Innocent,” yet the movie bit by bit puts chinks in the armor, in one fantastic through the looking glass moment with his attorney, literally making the case against himself. And in both flashbacks and scenes with his wife, when we are shown proof of his affair, Ford lets all the metaphorical air out of Rusty, rendering him as nothing more than a frightened little boy who wants everybody to believe he didn’t know better. In the end, though, Rusty is not the one who can clean up his mess. That turns out to be his wife, a transgressive twist on the whole chestnut of behind every great man there stands a strong woman.