Release Year: 1990 Rating: R Duration: 127 minutes Director: Alan J Pakula Producer: Mark Rosenberg, Sydney Pollack
synopsis
PRESUMED INNOCENT is a disturbing murder mystery told in the style director Alan J. Pakula (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN) enjoys best. Harrison Ford (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER) plays prosecuting attorney Rusty Sabich, who is deeply shaken by the sudden rape and murder of a colleague and former love interest. Sabich is assigned to the case, which becomes clouded by both personal and political interests that are in conflict. An adaptation of Scott Turow's best-selling novel, the film presents an intense look at the human flaws of ambition, greed and lust.
Barbara Sabich: You understand what happened had to happen. It couldn't have turned out any other way. A woman's depressed - with herself, with life. With her husband, who had made life possible for her, until he was... bewitched... by another woman. A destroyer.
[teary]
Barbara Sabich: Abandoned. Like someone left for dead. She plans her suicide... until the dream begins. In the dream, the destroyer is destroyed. That's a dream worth living for.
[dreamy]
Barbara Sabich: Now, with such simplicity, such clarity, everything falls into place. It must be a crime that her husband can declare unsolved and be believed by all the world. She must make it look like a rape, but she must leave her husband the clues. Once he discovers who it was, he'll put the case into the file of unsolved murders. Another break-in by some sex-crazed man.
[smiling]
Barbara Sabich: But all his life, he'll know that it was her. She remembers a set of glasses she bought for the woman some time before; a housewarming gift from her husband and his office. She buys another set. Her husband has a beer one night - doesn't even comment on the glass. Now she has his fingerprints. Then on a few mornings... she...
[grimacing]
Barbara Sabich: ... saves the fluid that comes out when she removes her diaphragm. Puts it in a plastic bag. Puts the bag in the basement freezer, and... waits.
[detached]
Barbara Sabich: She calls the woman and asks to see her; stops first at the U and logs into the computer. Now she has her alibi. She goes to the woman. The woman lets her in. When her head is turned, she removes the instrument from her bag and strikes. The destroyer is destroyed. She takes a cord out that she brought along, and ties her body in ways her husband described that perverts do. She feels power; control. A sense that she's guided by a force beyond herself. She takes a syringe and injects the contents of the ziploc bag. Leaves the glass on the bar. Unlocks the door and windows. And goes home. And life begins again.
[teary]
Barbara Sabich: Until a trial, when she sees her husband suffer the way she never intended. She was prepared to tell the truth, right up to the very end. But magically, the charges were dismissed.
[smiling]
Barbara Sabich: The suffering was over. And they were saved!
Rusty Sabich: [sobbing] *Saved?*
Harrison Ford is good at the everyman roles because he strikes you as an everyman. One of my sister's (many, many, uncountable number of) friends met Ford on a beach in America sometime last year; they talked for a while as they sat on the beach. Ford was tired of being harrassed by rabid fans and he just wanted someone to confide in as a normal person might do.
