I'm not sure this film was a very good idea, a rare misfire from Mr Redford. Because it tells the story of a woman who ran a boarding house which was associated with the gang of Rebels who killed Abraham Lincoln and stabbed the Secretary of State. She (Robin Wright) is most unfairly tried (we think - her innocence isn't entirely clearly established and even her attorney isn't sure) and despite efforts of defence lawyer James McEvoy found guilty and hanged. Her son, who could have cleared her, stays in hiding and is caught only much later when - get this - he is tried and acquitted. (This last information is supplied only in end titles. I wonder if the film would have been better if this latter incident was part of the main story.) There's no payoff for the audience - if I can put it so crudely - no return on the investment.
Why make a film about a major miscarriage of justice? Because these things still go on all the time?
The real life lawyer then quit the judiciary and started the Washington Post - a major irony in that the once august newspaper has recently been in the headlines for firing its own columnist Karen Attiah for not sticking to the Trump MAGA narrative instigated by its owner, Jeff Bezos - a / another sorry day for America.
A well enough made and acted film, with DP Newton Thomas Siegel sticking to a 'realistic' light design with shafts of diffused sunlight everywhere. Edited by Craig Mackay.
Kevin Kline, Tom Wilkinson. Danny Huston, Alexis Bledel, Stephen Root.
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