Reversal Of Fortune
An Elegant, Brazen, Maliciously Funny Black Comedy." -Tom Carson, L.A. WEEKLY
Did European aristocrat Claus von Bulow (Jeremy Irons) try to murder his wife Sunny (Glenn Close) at their luxurious Newport mansion in 1980? Tabloids of the day had their opinions. "You have one thing in your favor," defense attorney Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) told von Bulow. "Everybody hates you."
Based on Dershowitz's book by screenwriter Nicholas Kazan (Fallen, At Close Range) and directed by Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female), Reversal of Fortune is the acclaimed filmization of events that had all America talking. For his precise portrait of icy brittleness, Irons won the Best Actor Academy Award as well as the Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics Awards. Think you know the truth? Until you watch...you have no idea.
Member Reviews
jeremy irons steals the show - tbird
i thought it was a very intriguing story.Glenn closse was excellent as well. she has an amazing voice and both jeremy irons and glenn have a way of drawing you into the scene and both are captivating to watch. i thought the portrayal of the jewish lawyer was too over the top and it was a portrayal of a stereotype. i think they were trying too hard to depict him in a certain light and it felt silly to me.overall it was a good film.Rich! - Squish
When millionaire Claus von Bülow was convicted of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny in 1982, he asked high-profile lawyer Alan Dershowitz to appeal the case. Dershowitz accepted, and, in 1985, wrote a book about it.
From this book came the 1990 film 'Reversal of Fortune', a Mystery Drama that plays on the borders of Thriller and Dark Comedy. With a glorious 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, critics agree that 'Reversal of Fortune' is certainly a very worthy film, and I must concur.
Above all things, the script is the most impressive aspect of 'Reversal of Fortune'. It takes a multi-faceted approach, making our narrator the philosophically-waxing comatose Sunny, putting Claus, our might-be-murderer, in the unlikely shoes of 'hero', and topping it all off with the 'Jewish New York Lawyer' stereotype as Claus's Champion of Justice. Then, rather than going the route of cold and legal docudrama, director Barbet Schroeder and writer Nicholas Kazan take Dershowitz's material and make it an ethics-questioning whodunit that goes beyond 'did he or didn't he?', and deeply into the themes of class difference and Big-Picture Justice, all while rooting us firmly with an entertaining air of suspense that keeps you glued to the screen.
Of course, for as exquisite as the writing may be, the cherries that top this film are the performances of a hoity and entitled Glenn Close, a nerdy and driven Ron Silver and a deliciously stoic Jeremy Irons in his Academy-Award winning performance as Claus von Bülow. He exudes his character's cold and nigh-malignant demeanour, but not without enough sentimentality to inspire sympathy and even occasionally pity, if only for a little while.
Reversal of Fortune is an intelligently written, wonderfully nuanced film with characters that are just different enough to be as fresh and entertaining as they were 20 years ago.How the rich live - Yogini
Jeremy Irons steals the show. That said, let's move on. I began watching this film because I admire Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons. I kept watching because I became morbidly fascinated with the details of the empty lives of a couple of people who were too rich to know how to behave. As always, I am interested in the subtleties of morals and morality, and this film is almost an old-fashioned morality play.
Member Reviews
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jeremy irons steals the show - tbird
i thought it was a very intriguing story.Glenn closse was excellent as well. she has an amazing voice and both jeremy irons and glenn have a way of drawing you into the scene and both are captivating to watch. i thought the portrayal of the jewish lawyer was ...Rich! - Squish
When millionaire Claus von Bülow was convicted of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny in 1982, he asked high-profile lawyer Alan Dershowitz to appeal the case. Dershowitz accepted, and, in 1985, wrote a book about it.
From this book came the 1990 ...How the rich live - Yogini
Jeremy Irons steals the show. That said, let's move on. I began watching this film because I admire Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons. I kept watching because I became morbidly fascinated with the details of the empty lives of a couple of people who were too ...