Reminiscent of the opening of Sunset Boulevard (1950) which was narrated by a corpse (William Holden), Reversal of Fortune (1990) opens with the comatose Sunny von Bulow (Glenn Close) describing her present unfortunate circumstance. Sunny lies in an elegantly decorated hospital room in a terminal coma after what some see as a murder attempt by her husband, socialite and ladies man Claus von Bulow (Jeremy Irons). Director Barbet Schroeder periodically narrates this dark comedy/thriller through Sunny's jaded eyes.

Claus von Bulow, who may or may not have given his wife a lethal insulin injection, had nothing to gain in the event of a divorce from his troubled marriage. But a jury decided he had everything to gain if his wife died -- a $14 million dollar inheritance -- and convicted him of Sunny's murder.

A legal thriller about the elaborate, uphill attempt made by Harvard legal professor Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver), to appeal von Bulow's conviction, Reversal of Fortune is also a moral thriller about all the possibilities for guilt and innocence that arise as the case is dissected piece by piece. A lawyer attracted to impossible and hopeless cases, Dershowitz is inspired to take on the appeal after meeting the icy, dispassionate Claus.

Public opinion seems united against von Bulow and even Dershowitz's students have their doubts, like one who tells him ╥I'm really shocked with your record defending the poor and oppressed that you'd take this case.╙ But the lawyer sees the case as a unique challenge, and as a way, he tells von Bulow, to help finance a more noble cause: his effort to take two black brothers in Alabama off of death row.

Dershowitz assembles a team of his top Harvard students and legal experts, including his estranged wife Sarah (Annabella Sciorra) to work morning, noon and night to free von Bulow. In the meantime director Barbet Schroeder interweaves flashbacks to Sunny and Claus's at first storybook and then nightmarish life together that paint a dark picture of their privileged world. In a picture of society worthy of a Vanity Fair expose, Schroeder shows a Fifth Avenue apartment and a ten-acre Newport estate, Clarendon Court, where great wealth hid drug addiction, suicide, infidelity and depression. "From what I've seen of the rich, you can have them," Dershowitz snorts to von Bulow.

Some of the best moments in Reversal of Fortune are not the legal subtleties hashed out by Dershowitz and his students, or even the moral quandary the crusading lawyer feels about the appropriateness of representing von Bulow. Instead, it is Irons' steely, droll and chilling portrayal of a man with the demeanor of Bela Lugosi and Glenn Close's performance as a suicidal, depressed former society beauty turned drug addict that makes the film mesmerizing.

Nicholas Kazan, who wrote the screenplay (and is the son of famed On the Waterfront [1954] director Elia Kazan) and Schroeder make Claus von Bulow's true guilt or innocence the ambiguous linchpin of this labyrinthine story. Kazan had treated moral and legal uncertainty -- as well as the complicating factor of great wealth -- before in his script for Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst (1988).

Alan Dershowitz, whose appeal eventually led to a retrial and acquittal of Claus von Bulow in 1985, has represented such high-profile clients as Leona Helmsley and O.J. Simpson. He appears briefly and in profile in Reversal of Fortune as one of the Rhode Island appellate judges. Reversal was based on Dershowitz's book, which at the time of its release after von Bulow's acquittal was widely criticized for offering opinion as fact in the case. The film version of Reversal of Fortune, however, was critically revered for its open-ended treatment of the von Bulow case, garnering Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and winning Jeremy Irons a richly deserved Best Actor Oscar.

Director: Barbet Schroeder
Producer: Edward R. Pressman and Oliver Stone
Screenplay: Nicholas Kazan based upon the book by Alan M. Dershowitz
Cinematography: Luciano Tovoli
Production Design: Mel Bourne
Music: Mark Isham
Cast: Glenn Close (Sunny von Bulow), Jeremy Irons (Claus von Bulow), Ron Silver (Alan Dershowitz), Annabella Sciorra (Sarah), Uta Hagen (Maria), Fisher Stevens (David Marriott), Jack Gilpin (Peter MacIntosh), Christine Baranski (Andrea Reynolds), Stephen Mailer (Elon Dershowitz).
C-111m. Letterboxed.