Reversal of Fortune (1990)
Overview
Wealthy Sunny von Bülow lies brain-dead, husband Claus guilty of attempted murder; but he says he's innocent and hires Alan Dershowitz for his appeal.
Cast
Glenn Close
Sunny von Bülow / Narrator
Jeremy Irons
Claus von Bülow
Ron Silver
Alan Dershowitz
Annabella Sciorra
Sarah
Uta Hagen
Maria
Fisher Stevens
David Marriott
Jack Gilpin
Peter MacIntosh
Christine Baranski
Andrea Reynolds
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JPV852
Great performance from Jeremy Irons, well deserving of his Best Actor Academy Award, kind of is a letdown as both a legal and character drama. Some nice moments and solid performances from everyone but not sure I'll remember this one down the road. **3.5/5**
CinemaSerf
Quite why Jeremy Irons won an Oscar for this performance is anyone's guess. Though it is certainly one of his better efforts, he still comes across as remarkably wooden and un-engaging. His character - Klaus von Bulow - has just been convicted of attempting to marry his wealthy, socialite, wife Sonny (Glenn Close) by injecting her with drugs and leaving her to freeze to death on the bathroom floor (odd how they've got $14 million in the bank but never turn the central heating on!). Anyway, now she is lying in a coma and he is desperate so engages the services - at $300 a day, no less - of law professor Alan Dershowitz (upon whose book this is all based) to lead his appeal. It's history this, so if you're across the story then you will already know how it all pans out. Therefore what we are left with is a decent effort from Ron Silver as the tenacious lawyer, some almost ethereal contributions from Close as the occasionally animated corpse/narrator and the frankly underwhelming Irons. It's an interesting look at the drug-fuelled existence of the rich and famous and possibly not the best extolment of the state of marriage but somehow the whole thing is just a bit sterile, lacking, dry...
