When an older film fans lament loss of low-budget adult-oriented film, Presumed innocent is an obvious example of what they have in mind. The 1990 adaptation of Scott Turow’s hit legal thriller – starring Harrison Ford as a prosecutor accused of murdering his mistress – wasn’t meant to be high art, but it was nevertheless made by and for adults. Writer/director Alan J. Pakula was responsible for All the President’s Men, Sophie’s choice, CluteAnd The parallax view, among other classics. Ford was (and still is) one of our great movie stars, and the supporting cast was filled with great actors like Brian Dennehy, Raul Julia, John Spencer, and Bonnie Bedelia. Next year, Ford will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the fourth Captain America movie, but in the ’90s there was an unofficial legal cinematic universe, where stars like him, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington were rushing to make the headlines. films based on novels by the likes of Turow and John Grisham. (Pakula directed one of each, also teaming up with Roberts and Washington for a version of Grisham’s film. The Pelican file.)
Between sweeping economic changes in the film industry and the rise of cable and streaming drama series, these kinds of stories — not blockbuster franchises, but not blatant Oscar-winning pieces either — now go almost exclusively straight to the small screen. And since the concept of the TV movie is all but gone, that means we’re seeing a lot of prestige-laden miniseries, where the big stars have between six and ten hours to really get to grips with a character and a plot. Sometimes this prolonged approach can pay huge dividends, as we saw earlier this year with how Netflix Ripley brilliantly took a heavy procedural approach to a story that had already been told in a more compact manner. More often than not, however, these limited series cannot disguise their nature as something that would have been better suited to the length of a feature film, and which gets bogged down in this other format.
The reboot of Apple TV+ Presumed innocent is unfortunately the most common example. This is a beautiful and refined adaptation, flanking the star power of Jake Gyllenhaal with an impressive ensemble. Yet despite being more than three times as long as the film, its story seems simpler and its characters less complex. Anyone with even vague memories of the film will grow impatient, while first-time viewers will likely wonder how so much talent resulted in such a mediocre spectacle.
Gyllenhaal plays Rozat “Rusty” Sabich, the trusted number two to outgoing Chicago District Attorney Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp). Rusty is still trying to rebuild his marriage to Barbara (Ruth Negga) following his complicated affair with co-worker Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve) when Carolyn is gruesomely murdered. Raymond – unaware of the relationship and massive conflict of interest – assigns Rusty to the case. But when Raymond loses his re-election to Nico Della Guardia (OT Fagbenie), Nico replaces Rusty with his sidekick Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgard), who is both vengeful and intelligent enough to recognize that Rusty should be their prime suspect.
Turow’s storyline is this time in the hands of television legend David E. Kelley. At the time of the film’s release, Kelley was in the midst of an acclaimed career as the hit film’s showrunner. Los Angeles Lawand would go on to dominate the television legal space for the next 20 years with shows like The practice, Ally McBealAnd Boston Legal Department. Lately, he’s reinvented himself as the television industry’s go-to guy for these kinds of bracing literary adaptations, like Big little lies or that of Netflix A whole man from the beginning of this year. Sometimes they’re well-regarded hits, and sometimes they’re hits The defeat.
With Presumed innocent, Kelley made the odd choice to spend more time simplifying the story. Several notable characters were either removed entirely or combined with others. In the book and movie, for example, Rusty hires flamboyant defense attorney Sandy Stern (wonderfully played by Raul Julia) when Tommy and Nico put him on trial for Carolyn’s murder. Here he simply convinces Raymond to change teams, since no one knows the key players better. Although Nico and Tommy are oily to varying degrees, there’s much less of a sense of institutional corruption this time around than in the book or movie. In earlier versions, Carolyn has a long history of having sex with male colleagues to get ahead, which adds complications to both the mystery and our understanding of her; here, Rusty is her only such lover, at least in the episodes shown to critics. We didn’t get the finale, so I don’t know if Kelley kept the famous original ending or changed the identity of who killed Carolyn, and why.
But these other changes remove much of the nuance and narrative engagement that was present on the page and in the Ford film, and sections of the season can drag on as a result. The only area where the show seems to benefit from the extra length is with Barbara, and in its elaborate depiction of her feelings about her husband, the affair with Carolyn, and the harsh spotlight the trial has cast on her and their children. .
Ruth Negga and Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Presumed Innocent’.
Apple TV+
Negga is very good, but so is almost the entire cast, regardless of the level of acting of the actors. Bill Camp takes obvious pleasure in playing a character as pure as Raymond, who at one point boasts, “Nothing is beneath me.” I once fucked a beanbag. James Hiroyuki Liao appears on screen as the temperamental medical examiner Herbert “Painless” Kumagai, and if Tommy is the kind of bad guy Sarsgard has often played before, it’s because he always does it so well.
Gyllenhaal, meanwhile, has done his best to avoid pigeonholing, playing characters with a wide range of morality and temperament, from the good rocket boy Homer in October sky to the monstrous cameraman Louis in Somnambulist. (Mr. Music of John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Group is probably closer to the end of Louis’ things.) Gyllenhaal, Kelley, and directors Anne Sewitsky and Greg Yaitanes take advantage of this versatility — and this story — to leave open the very real possibility that our hero is actually the perpetrator of crime. for which he is being tried.
Like many of these mini-series, Presumed innocent has so much talent on hand that he can be convincing in short bursts. But unless Kelley has a dazzling ending in mind – whether it’s a new version of Turow or one of his own invention – there’s very little that will justify viewers’ time would have to spend to get there, compared to saving time by simply renting the movie. .
The first two episodes of Presumed innocent are now streaming on Apple TV+, with additional episodes releasing weekly. I’ve seen the first seven of eight episodes.