← Back to Reviews
in
This review contains spoilers.
Paul Newman and Charlotte Rampling have two of the most beautiful pairs of eyes in the movies, and in The Verdict, they spend much of the runtime pointing them at objects of significance, at the camera, and at each other. In one of the emotional high points of the movie, we're treated to a shot-reverse shot sequence where the characters make eye contact and approach each other, their expressions subtly shifting as emotions come to a boil, one character processing the their betrayal by the other as they converge. It's a deceptively simple yet undeniably powerful piece of direction, and I'm not sure it would have resonated as much had the actors less striking pairs of eyes. In an alternate reality both Newman and Rampling would have had their stars fade and flown over to Italy and ended up in a Lucio Fulci movie, where the famously ommetaphobic director would have hit us with a barrage of extreme eye close-ups and then...Splow! In case the power of onamotopoeia fails me, the sound I'm making is the one that's meant to evoke the results of the spiked-bat-on-testicle torture from the intro to "M.E.T.H.O.D. Man".
I watched this to chase The Color of Money, which I'd put on to pre-game for Top Gun: Maverick (the original was not on any of my streaming services) but only made me hungry for more Newman. And I think the two movies pair well together (this and The Color of Money, although that one pairs better than you'd expect with Top Gun: Maverick) as there are similarities in Newman's performances and character arcs. Both characters are old and faded and not as sharp as they used to be, but where Scorsese conceded Newman's underlying coolness and complemented the hints of classic Newman magic with an appropriately flashy style, Lumet opens with him in a completely dismal state, having him scan the obituary section and sneak into funerals as the movie opens. (Rampling later sizes him up succinctly: "You want to be a failure? Then, do it some place else! I can't invest in failure, Frank, anymore. I can't.") Both movies show the characters navigating bars with some frequency, and evokes the settings with the , but here there's no real joy, just desperation.
The movie is a masterclass in small moments and gestures, and you can see Newman get a glimmer of a certain hope when a potential expert witness concludes an exchange in the simplest words.
I'm not sure this moment would work nearly as well if Lumet didn't trust his actors completely and if anyone without the carefully calibrated magnetism of Newman were providing the reaction. Similar to Scorsese's movie, there's a deep appreciation of Newman as a movie star, and the movie generates a certain tension between Newman's immense charisma and the state of his character. We want him to succeed because he's Paul Newman, dammit.
I'd actually watched most of this years ago, but had missed the ending, which as you can guess is pretty important for a courtroom drama. Now for years I'd processed my failure to catch those last few minutes by rationalizing that it doesn't matter what the outcome is to the case, but you know, it kind of does here, at least in terms of the emotional fallout for the main characters. (As a result I'm considering it a first time; also I'd forgotten large chunks of the movie.) I am no legal eagle (and have yet to even be called for jury duty) so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the courtroom scenes, but Lumet's direction is so good as to be invisible, knowing just where to point the camera and when to cut, so that the proceedings themselves provide the tension. There's a key moment when Newman concludes his case, and as he's speaking, Lumet slowly moves in his camera. The move is pretty straightfoward, but the effect is tremendously moving, granting this character a certain dignity he'd been fighting to reclaim for the entire movie. Sometimes simpler is better.
The Verdict (Lumet, 1982)
This review contains spoilers.
Paul Newman and Charlotte Rampling have two of the most beautiful pairs of eyes in the movies, and in The Verdict, they spend much of the runtime pointing them at objects of significance, at the camera, and at each other. In one of the emotional high points of the movie, we're treated to a shot-reverse shot sequence where the characters make eye contact and approach each other, their expressions subtly shifting as emotions come to a boil, one character processing the their betrayal by the other as they converge. It's a deceptively simple yet undeniably powerful piece of direction, and I'm not sure it would have resonated as much had the actors less striking pairs of eyes. In an alternate reality both Newman and Rampling would have had their stars fade and flown over to Italy and ended up in a Lucio Fulci movie, where the famously ommetaphobic director would have hit us with a barrage of extreme eye close-ups and then...Splow! In case the power of onamotopoeia fails me, the sound I'm making is the one that's meant to evoke the results of the spiked-bat-on-testicle torture from the intro to "M.E.T.H.O.D. Man".
I watched this to chase The Color of Money, which I'd put on to pre-game for Top Gun: Maverick (the original was not on any of my streaming services) but only made me hungry for more Newman. And I think the two movies pair well together (this and The Color of Money, although that one pairs better than you'd expect with Top Gun: Maverick) as there are similarities in Newman's performances and character arcs. Both characters are old and faded and not as sharp as they used to be, but where Scorsese conceded Newman's underlying coolness and complemented the hints of classic Newman magic with an appropriately flashy style, Lumet opens with him in a completely dismal state, having him scan the obituary section and sneak into funerals as the movie opens. (Rampling later sizes him up succinctly: "You want to be a failure? Then, do it some place else! I can't invest in failure, Frank, anymore. I can't.") Both movies show the characters navigating bars with some frequency, and evokes the settings with the , but here there's no real joy, just desperation.
The movie is a masterclass in small moments and gestures, and you can see Newman get a glimmer of a certain hope when a potential expert witness concludes an exchange in the simplest words.
"Why are you doing this?"
"To do the right thing. Isn't that why you're doing it?"
"To do the right thing. Isn't that why you're doing it?"
I'd actually watched most of this years ago, but had missed the ending, which as you can guess is pretty important for a courtroom drama. Now for years I'd processed my failure to catch those last few minutes by rationalizing that it doesn't matter what the outcome is to the case, but you know, it kind of does here, at least in terms of the emotional fallout for the main characters. (As a result I'm considering it a first time; also I'd forgotten large chunks of the movie.) I am no legal eagle (and have yet to even be called for jury duty) so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the courtroom scenes, but Lumet's direction is so good as to be invisible, knowing just where to point the camera and when to cut, so that the proceedings themselves provide the tension. There's a key moment when Newman concludes his case, and as he's speaking, Lumet slowly moves in his camera. The move is pretty straightfoward, but the effect is tremendously moving, granting this character a certain dignity he'd been fighting to reclaim for the entire movie. Sometimes simpler is better.