Saturday, December 21, 2019

Richard Jewell …

Debbie and I went with my stepdaughter Jen and her son Ben to see Richard Jewell yesterday. It is really very good. Everyone in it is good, but I especially liked Sam Rockwell as Watson Bryant, Jewell’s lawyer. All the complaints about how journalist Kathy Scruggs is portrayed struck me as being based on a failure to observe. Sure, Scruggs comes off as more than a tad ruthless. But it is she who goes to the FBI agent who gave her the tip and tells him Jewell could not have walked the distance back to the bomb site in time. She says out loud to herself that Jewell could not have been the perp. And she wipes away tears when Jewell’s mother begs the President to exonerate her son. Olivia Wilde does a very good job of portraying her in all her ambiguity.The real villain is the FBI guy, who seems incapable of dislodging any notion once it has settled into his brain.

See also: For Richard Jewell’s mother and lawyer, Clint Eastwood’s new film brings both pain and healing.

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