The Verdict

Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) is a down-on-his luck, alcoholic lawyer in Boston.  In the past three years, he’s had four cases and spends most of his time either at a bar playing pin ball and shooting whiskey or peddling his business cards at funerals.  When a friend gets him an easy hospital negligence case, it becomes a chance at redemption for Frank.

Four years ago, a young woman was given the wrong anesthetic while going into labor and has been a vegetable in a coma ever sense.  Her sister and brother-in-law are seeking justice from the Catholic hospital.  We get the feeling that the hospital and  archdiocese have something to hide, especially when they’re willing to settle.  This should be an open-and-shut case for Frank, earning him enough money to let him drink away the rest of the time he has left.

Going to trial is more important to Frank than settling, he even turns down a settlement of two hundred thousand dollars.  He seems to be risking everything for his own chance to prove himself to himself.  But for that selfish moment for redemption, has he underestimated his opponent, defense attorney Ed Concannon (James Mason), and put his trust in an enemy?

While all this sounds interesting, I think there are a very select few who would really enjoy this movie.  You see, it’s very quiet and its action consists of tense quiet moments, conversations and the subdued intensity within the courtroom.  To many, The Verdict would be two hours of quiet boredom.

However, I found a silver lining to all this quietness and found myself surprised at how tuned in I was to every word, action and soft sound presented.  I think that’s what viewers are supposed to do here, it’s like we’re listening for something important on a radio that keeps fading in and out.  There are many slow and quiet moments for us to focus all our senses on.  In one amazing shot, Frank is watching a couple Polaroids he just snapped of the victim in a coma develop.  They slowly come into focus and color, and the camera doesn’t look away.  All we hear is the quiet hiss and pump of the machines keeping the coma ward alive.  The longer we watch, wait and listen, these sounds become deafening, yet they aren’t really rising.  The Verdict is full of moments like this, where we wait, watch become enticed and agonized wanting that pin to drop and break the tension lingering in the air.  Though I would not recommend this film to the masses, those who find an appreciation for courtroom dramas, Sidney Lumet’s work and what I’ve described here are encouraged to seek The Verdict out.

“You guys… you guys are all the same!  The doctors at the hospital, you… it’s always what I’m going to do for you.  And then you screw up, and it’s, “Ah, we did the best that we could, I’m dreadfully sorry.”  And people like us live with your mistakes the rest of our lives.”

Tender Mercies

While Terms of Endearment is your quirky girl-time tear-jerker that mothers and daughters can paint their toes to, Tender Mercies is your stronger, quieter type of family drama that the men won’t immediately flee from.

Robert Duvall plays Mac Sledge, a broken down middle-aged man who was once a great country singer.  The first image we see of him is a drunk silhouette in a motel room fighting over a bottle of booze, then we see his greasy bald head pass out on the floor.  It seems that somewhere on that floor, Mac realized he was nowhere and needed to get back up.  He’s got no money and nowhere to go, so he humbly asks the motel owner Rosa (Tess Harper) if he can work for her.  She’s a kind woman and they can help each other out.

This little motel on the side of a dusty road is in the middle of nowhere under the big Texas sky.  It looks like one of the loneliest places in the world, and maybe it is.  It’s just Rosa and her son Sonny (Allan Hubbard) who live there and they’re all the family each other has.  Sonny’s father was killed in Vietnam when he was just a baby, leaving Rosa a widow at eighteen.  And Sonny is getting to a curious age where he’s asking more and more questions about the father he never knew.

As Mac works for Rosa, he becomes part of the family.  It’s nearly odd how Mac so quietly becomes a part of Rosa and Sonny’s life.  We’ve hardly seen a conversation with Rosa before Mac asks to marry her.  But maybe that’s just how it is here in dusty lonely Texas, there’s no need for long winded conversations and you can really hear the few people your around much better.

Mac and Rosa are married before we even know about Mac’s troubled past.  He was once married to Dixie (Betty Buckley) who’s still a successful country singer and they have a daughter who’s nearly eighteen.  Mac writes a new song, gives it to Dixie hoping she can make some use out of it and hopes to see his daughter.  When Dixie throws the song in Mac’s face and refuses to let him see his daughter, it nearly drives Mac to the bottle again.

While this is a story about Mac getting his life back together, it seems he’s not always ready to just plunge into the waters.  When his daughter comes out to the motel to meet him, it’s not exactly hugs, tears and sweeping violins.  The air feels stifling in that little yellow living room as she tries to share her life with Mac.  She tells him about her boyfriend, how her mother disapproves and asks if it was him who used to sing her a certain lullaby.  Mac lies and says he doesn’t remember it, like he’s just not ready to be that fond memory for her.  Yet in the field across the street, under the wide blue sky, Rosa and Sonny talk easily.  Maybe they just have more air to breathe.

Now, there are a few things you can probably guess will happen in this film, but there are a few sucker punches that make this film feel real, not like some after school special.  This is a bleak, spread out and lonely world where second chances don’t come along so easily.  It seems that girls get married too early and it never works out.  Many dads never come back home and leave kids with so many questions.  So you can’t ask for much and you’ll only be disappointed if you expect too much.  In Tender Mercies, you’ve got to hold onto whatever little happiness you can find.

“I don’t trust happiness. I never did, I never will.”