Conviction
Cinema Nova, 24/02/2011
Movie #15 for 2011
I love when you get an entire cinema to yourself. Not sure what you like to do in that situation, but I will either cheer or heckle the screen. For Conviction, I was compelled to do both.
Conviction is an incredible story - in 1983, Kenny Waters (played by SAM ROCKWELL, Moon) is arrested and convicted for a murder he didn’t commit. His sister, Betty Anne (HILLARY SWANK) is the only person who doesn’t think he did it, and freeing him becomes her life’s work, including passing high school, a BA and a law degree. It takes her nearly 20 years to get him out of prison.
The performances are very good, and excellent support from MINNIE DRIVER, MELISSA LEO (who just won an Oscar for The Fighter) and JULIETTE LEWIS (who seems to have carved a new niche for herself in scene-stealing white trash cameos).
I like the way director TONY GOLDWYN stayed away from over-heroising Betty Anne - her determination is heroic enough. She is not the best un-educated lawyer on the face of the Earth, she just perseveres, a LOT, until she gets a lucky break. There are no montages of her poring over legal briefs or cross referencing seven books at once and suddenly finding the key to the case that no one else had been able to see. She’s more human as a struggling single mother, barmaid and terrible student. Goldwyn also kept a nice touch of truth about the characters - Betty Anne wears some terrible, frumpy clothes and Kenny is a violent lout.
Goldwyn does overplay the family drama, though - there is lots of swelling piano to make sure we cry at the exact moment the characters hug. I groaned audibly at that, but I had the cinema to myself, so it didn’t bother anyone else.
