# Reversal of Fortune (1990)

### reviewed by
Sridhar Prasad

    REVERSAL OF FORTUNE
    A film by Barbet Schroeder
    With: Jeremy Irons, Ron Silver, Glenn Close, Fisher Stevens, and
    Annabella Sciorra

Did Claus Von Bulow try to kill his wife Sunny in their Newport mansion? That is the question Reversal of Fortune asks you to consider as it opens in a hospital ward, with a comatose Sunny Von Bulow. She is the main narrator of the film, in a narrative trick that was extraordinarily risky for Schroeder. The dramatic trick works, as Sunny Von Bulow narrates a compelling story of murder, sex, unhappiness, and a lawyer's moral dilemma as he takes a case he thinks he cannot win.

Jeremy Irons is Claus Von Bulow, in what is his finest role, and one of the most devastingly evil performances in history. He is as hated as any man alive, as cold as a cucumber. His remorse for his wife's comatose condition is nonexistant, and it is no wonder that even his children have difficulty accepting his version of what happened during Christmas, 1980.

The background to the case is such. During Christmas of 1979, Sunny Von Bulow fell into a deep coma from which she recovered and awoke. The same situation occured in 1980, only Sunny never woke, and probably never will. When examined, it was found that she had 14 times the normal amount of insulin within her blood. Claus Von Bulow is then accused of attempted murder by his stepson, convicted, and freed on bail. He immediately hires Alan Dershowitz, the renowed Harvard Law professor, to acquit him.

Ron Silver is magnificent as a moral lawyer who cannot stand what has happened to him. We follow him through two very different cases; the case of the Johnson case, where two innocent kids are standing on Death Row for a crime they didn't commit, and von Bulow, who he still hasn't figured out. Dershowitz doesn't know what happened to Sunny, and he is extremely hesitant to take the case. Nevertheless, he does, based on certain things which happen during the investigative process that deeply upset him. Together with a group of law students, Dershowitz concocts a defense and ultimately get the verdict reversed.

Silver's performance is one of a handful of solid roles in this deep film. Schroeder directs on many different levels, with multiple plot lines which blend in wonderfully in the mind of Alan Dershowitz. There are flaws; at times, the film gets overly theatrical. Yet, due to Glenn Close's troubled and brutally honest performance as Sunny von Bulow, the use of her comatose body as a narrator works here fairly well. The flashbacks are good, but at times Schroeder doesn't fill in the blanks. The movie could have benefited with the increased attention of certain developments during the film, and it could have used a better ending. The film progressed wonderfully before ending suddenly, without any intelligent conclusion. The supporting characters are often neglected, and Dershowitz's team should have been allowed to grow character wise, but Schroeder over-simplifies the story and the characters.

Yet, for all these flaws, the film is deeply engrossing because of Irons. As von Bulow, he is brutally evil. Anti-Semitic, prejudiced, arrogant, protective, he is a rotten, lying monster, whose conviction may have been wrong legally, but morally he was to blame. Irons plays him to a cold perfection, with pathetic attempts to gain moral support for his claims to innocence. He is an adulterous liar and a cheat who in all likelihood committed the murder.

However, the genius of Reversal of Fortune comes in its distinction between moral culpability and legal responsibility. There is no doubt von Bulow is responsible for his wife's death by years of neglect and coldness. However, legally, did he do the murder? Schroeder dares the viewer to make up his own mind. With all the character flaws, Reversal of Fortune is an engrossing puzzle because it is intelligent; he wants the viewer to make up his own mind. Schroeder taunts the viewer with contradictory revelations, and then mentions that the answer to this compelling puzzle shall be revealed when we join Sunny von Bulow, in death. For all the failed dramatic theatrics, this is one that works beautifully. We don't know what happened. That sense of legal ambiguousness, along with von Bulow's obvious moral guilt, is why Reversalf Fortune works. In the end, von Bulow is as sadistic as ever. Irons is haunting, and that is why Reversal of Fortune is so good.

    FINAL: ***1/2 out of ****

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