'Conviction' review

Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell (Credit: Ron Batzdorff/Fox Searchlight)

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It’s an incredibly true story of sibling devotion: high school dropout and single mom Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) gets her GED and graduates from law school just so she can overturn the wrongful conviction her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) received in 1983 for murder. Her 18 year quest is ultimately successful, with big assists from her law school buddy Abra (Minnie Driver) and the DNA-evidence organization The Innocence Project, run by crusading New York attorney Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher).

The buzz: Two-time Oscar winner Swank loves playing real life heroines, but the results vary greatly in quality—from the highs of “Boys Don’t Cry” to the lows of last year’s “Amelia.” This time she teams with writer Pamela Gray and director Tony Goldwyn, who previously collaborated on the sensitive 1999 Diane Lane drama “A Walk on the Moon.”

The verdict: “Conviction” takes a painfully dark and tragic story and squanders it with emotional button-pushing movie formula. By boiling down Betty Anne’s long struggle to the necessary highs and lows, the film falls into a seemingly endless cycle: defeat, joy, defeat, repeat. Scenes of great misery—including flashbacks to Betty Anne and Kenny’s rough childhood—clash against scenes of Betty Anne and Abra yelping with glee over a positive turn in Kenny’s case, only to inevitably face another obstacle a minute later. The filmmakers ease up on the emotional whiplash in the final third, and the strong cast finds room to breathe, allowing for some genuinely moving developments—especially in the relationship between Kenny and his estranged daughter (nicely played by Ari Graynor). But it’s too little, too late to rescue “Conviction” from becoming an overly simplified take on an epic story of injustice and perseverance.

Did you know? In one last tragic twist, the real life Kenny Waters died six months after Betty Anne finally cleared his name. He was only 47.

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