A scene from David E. Kelley’s new legal drama Was considered innocent.
Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Watching presumed innocentDavid E. Kelley’s new legal drama for Apple TV+ stirs up complicated emotions. The show stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Rusty Sabich, a prosecutor accused of murdering his younger colleague Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Rinceway), with whom he had an extramarital affair.
It is based on Scott Turow’s best-selling 1987 novel, which was the source for a big-screen adaptation in 1990 starring Harrison Ford. presumed innocent It is replete with Kelly’s familiar traits: macabre, sensational subject matter, an emphasis on psychology over materialistic concerns, and intense, emotionally charged dialogue spoken by unfailingly self-righteous characters.
When he’s at the peak of his ability, Kelly makes an enjoyable genre show out of these elements. However, when he’s not, a lot of Kelly’s protagonists start to sound like each other: overconfident braggarts with a streak of moral stubbornness and, of course, American exceptionalism. So when presumed innocent Whether working as a hardboiled mystery or a police/court procedural, it does really well. Turow is credited as an executive producer on the show and both he and Kelly were lawyers before entering showbiz. So, no wonder they are good writers of legal procedurals.
Producer David E. Kelley | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Outdated, sexist assumptions
However, the show gives a lot of screen time to the family drama surrounding Sabich, not to mention his own guilt over cheating on his wife. Ruth Negga does a great job as Sabich’s long-suffering wife Barbara. Her performance in the film, directed by Rebecca Hall, is a delight. Passing The story from a few years ago was much bigger. They have done a competent job with a poorly written character presumed innocentBoth women in Sabich’s life, his wife Barbara and his late coworker/ex-girlfriend Carolyn, are written stereotypically.
Carolyn’s only narrative function is to act out cliched sex scenes with Sabich in flashback sequences and remind him that he’s not ambitious. In contrast, Barbara only exists to remind Sabich every now and then that he’s not the ‘family man’ he thought he was. We’re told that Carolyn began the affair with Sabich only because she thought he was a rising star in the DA’s office. This ‘gold digger’ narrative of a morally upright protagonist being misled by a career woman – it just has to die. This trope isn’t even executed that well presumed innocent,
Kelly debuts as head writer L.A. Law before creating landmark shows in the 90s and 2000s, including Practice, Boston Legal And Ally McBealRecently, he has enjoyed a triumphant return to mainstream TV The Lincoln Lawyer, Big Little Lies And The Undoingthe last two of which star Nicole Kidman in the lead role. However, many of her biggest successes, including Boston Legal And PracticeThey haven’t necessarily aged so well. Kelley has the same problem as another star showrunner of the ’90s and 2000s, Aaron Sorkin.
Trust in politics
Kelly and Sorkin are essentially Clinton liberals, who built their following on a brand of progressivism that relied heavily on political theater and placed symbolic black and brown spokespeople in charge of status quo government agencies.
As a result, many of his best works have become very outdated. the newsroomWith its open contempt for young people (particularly young Democrats), Today seems unbearably complacent, as it has in many episodes West Wing. Kelly’s Boston LegalIn seasons three and four, he made no secret of his preference for Hillary Clinton, even going so far as to caricature Barack Obama supporters.
Of course, Clinton lost the easiest election in American history and has since spent the last five to six years complaining that young men prefer Bernie Sanders to her. Joe Biden seems to have gone down a similar path, with his approval ratings dropping every week. After his poor performance in CNN’s presidential debate last week, the Biden campaign sent a panicked email to Democratic voters, insisting that Biden would still win. “This is not Aaron Sorkin’s fever dream,” the email said, underlining how similar Sorkin’s politics are to the politics of Biden in particular and boomer liberals in general.
People like Kelly and Sorkin must either completely reinvent themselves or accept the reality of their own continuing obsolescence. Presumed innocenceHowever, that day is still far away.
The author and journalist is working on his first non-fiction book.
