Reversal of Fortune

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title, Reversal of Fortune (1990), can refer to several aspects of this film, which is based on a true story. It can point to the change from consciousness to a coma that Sunny Von Bulow (Glenn Close) endures. It can also indicate what happens to her husband, Claus Von Bulow (Jeremy Irons, who won an Oscar for Best Actor for this role), who is accused of trying to kill his wife. It may be that Claus literally receives a fortune because if his wife dies, he inherits her extreme wealth. And finally, the word “reversal” could mean reversing a conviction of murder on appeal. The film also presents a situation where what is real can be difficult to determine.

The first shot of the film shows the opulent estates of the rich in Newport, Rhode Island from the air, as if the rich soar above others, and it highlights the reference to “fortune” in the title. But then, shot shifts to a hospital, pointing to that reversal of fortune. Sunny is on life support. The film has Sunny narrating while in her coma, a device that allows Glenn Close to add her voice in addition to the scenes where she is in flashback. The voiceover allows suggestions as to whether her condition was the result of her own actions or due to her husband’s intent. She recovered from an earlier coma which could suggest she is at fault, but there is the possibility that Claus just used her tendencies to cover up his own murderous intent, and his first attempt failed.

The maid, Maria (Uta Hagen) and Sunny’s children from a prior marriage were suspicious after the first coma and the second put Sunny in a persistent vegetative state, from which she did not recover. The police found that Sunny’s insulin level when she entered the hospital was high enough to cause a coma or kill her, most likely due to an injection. They found a needle supposedly encrusted with insulin residue, which pointed to Claus as the perpetrator. Claus could inherit fourteen million dollars, so there is motive. In addition, Claus and Sunny had an arrangement where he could have mistresses. Claus was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to thirty years. These are the general facts of the case.

The real story begins when lawyer Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) becomes involved. He says he takes cases that for him have either a moral or constitutional imperative. The contrast in the fairness of the justice system here occurs because Alan loses a case about two innocent Black youths at the time the wealthy Claus wants to hire him. Alan is skeptical of Claus’s innocence and will charge him a great deal to help him defend the more disadvantaged.

Claus has a snobbish voice, and Irons said it was the hardest part of his performance. He makes a reference to admiring the Jewish people, which, when going out of the way to be stated, sounds prejudicial. At lunch, when Alan wants to talk about the “unpleasantness,” Claus thinks he means the lawyer’s fee, not the health of his wife. It highlights Claus’s lack of empathy. Alan says that one thing in Claus’s favor is that everybody hates him, which means one can show that Claus can be a victim. Of course, it’s a left-handed comment.

Maria the maid testified that she found a vial of insulin and a hypodermic needle, yet Sunny was not diabetic. Alan at the beginning feels that he would have voted to convict Claus if on the jury. He says if Hitler had asked him to defend him, his choice would have been to defend him or kill him. He admits that he would take the case and then kill Hitler. That shows both sides of Alan, a person who wants to follow the law, but also thinks outside it when it comes to morality. (Alan was part of the defense teams for O. J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein trials, and defended President Donald Trump in the impeachment trials. It’s up to you to judge his legal and moral codes).

Alan gathers a team around him to question him, to keep him thinking objectively and considering different strategies. It shows how Alan is willing to let his ego come under scrutiny. In contrast, you have Claus, who says, “Let the chips fall where they may,” to which Alan says that is what an innocent person would say. Claus’s response with a sly smile is, “I know.” The scene reveals that Claus is a schemer who is centered on his own self-interest.

Claus adds context to the basic charges by saying Sunny detested doctors and that is why he didn’t call one immediately. He knew there were hypodermic needles because they injected themselves with vitamin B12 shots at one time. He also says that Sunny took some of his prescriptions.

One of Alan’s team members is Minnie (Felicity Huffman) who argues that Claus, a privileged aristocrat, is despicable and that by trying to get him off, they are culpable as “accessories after the fact” in allowing a heinous man to go free. Generally, Alan gives the usual argument that everyone must have a fair trial to ensure that the innocent ones “falsely accused” have the same rights to even the playing field. In Claus’s case he says he is “pissed off,” because the children hired their own investigator to search for evidence. If rich people can decide what the evidence is in a case, then that precedent will make it difficult for poor people to be investigated in the same way the privileged are.

The investigation reveals how unsavory characters get involved, trying to cash in on a high-profile case, or hiding mistakes, which shows the road to justice can be a deceptive one. For instance, there is the slimy David Marriott (Fisher Stevens) who says he helped deliver drugs to Sunny. He later edits a tape to make it look like Alan was paying him to falsify evidence. We don’t learn why he did that (an example of how truth can be twisted). The lawyer in the earlier trial has notes that he is unwilling to share, but which eventually become known. Alan feels that there was no finding of insulin until after the fact. Alan suggests there may have been a frame-up of Claus by Sunny’s children, the next in line in inheritance. But as one student later says, the children could have framed “a guilty man.” There is a news article which has author Truman Capote revealing that Sunny showed him how to inject drugs. So, there are several layers muddling the attempt to get at what really happened.

Claus has a very dark sense of humor, which alienates him from others. When he meets Alan’s defense team, he says, “What do you give a wife who has everything? …An injection of insulin.” And, “How do you define a fear of insulin? … Claus-traphobia.” In another conversation with Allan, who says that a priest is an ideal witness, because “it’s like getting the word of God,” Claus says, “I checked. God is unavailable.” The last lines of the film have Claus getting cigarettes at a pharmacy. After the clerk recognizes him, he says he also wants, “a vial of insulin…just kidding.”

At one interview, Alan, trying to decipher Claus’s psyche, asks why he stayed in the flat where his mother died for five days until reporting the death. Claus is not forthcoming, saying, “My mother is my own business.” Who is this guy? Is he innocent or a killer? That is what Alan is trying to figure out. Especially when we have the narration of the comatose Sunny saying that she took huge amounts of laxatives and aspirin, used an assortment of sedatives, smoked a great deal, and drank to excess on certain occasions. We have a situation where it is difficult to determine what is true and what is false about the circumstances surrounding her vegetative state. Given her self-destructive actions, there is the possibility of her being suicidal.

Claus does not demonize Sunny. Quite the opposite. He says that she was “lovely,” and loved Christmas because more than anything else, she enjoyed giving gifts to others. The couple weren’t intimate for quite a while, but even though she allowed Claus his brief infidelities with call girls, she was hurt when Claus became attached to Alexandra Ises (Julia Hagerty) who sent his love letters to her to spite Sunny. According to Claus, they did discuss divorce, but he wanted to stay with Sunny. However, he wanted to work to have a sense of value, but Sunny wanted him to herself. As Claus tells Allan’s team, she thought her husband was confusing since he married her for her money but still wanted to have a job. Claus tells the team that the second coma was “much more theatrical.” An outraged Alan asks if Claus even cares about his wife’s horrible predicament. He claims he does, but he says. “I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve.” The audience can never get a true fix on what makes Claus and Sunny tick.

Comatose Sunny rightfully says, “it’s easy to forget this is all about me.” The whole story focuses on Claus, but she is the one who is hopelessly confined to a bed, needing others to maintain her existence. That may say something about the rest of us who would rather center on a scandal than on someone’s suffering, or her prior life full of passion and tenderness with Claus, and love for her children. There is a scene where she and Claus meet early on at an outdoor party where a pet tiger approaches her and she is bold about giving the creature a snack. Claus is excited by this act and joins Sunny near the animal. Sunny says, “I never liked people much, not as a rule.” She says that Claus was “different. Not a normal person I guess.” Here we have a sense of how out of the mainstream they were, more comfortable with a wild beast than other humans. Sunny’s voiceover states that things later became “brutish” and “cold,” and she wonders, “is he the Devil? If so, can the Devil get justice?” She wonders if all the legal activity is “in Satan’s service.” That sounds like what Alan talked about earlier concerning how even the guilty must have a fair trial.

Alan’s personality is not free of guilt, also. He sacrifices his personal relationships for his work, which he concedes is “all that I care about.” His own son interrupts him and sarcastically introduces his daughter to Alan, as if he hasn’t had time for her. His ex-girlfriend, Sarah (Annabella Sciorra), who is helping him with the case, says he doesn’t pay attention to those he cares about. He may have invited her to the team so he can be close to her, without being emotionally available.

After describing what happened the night of the second coma, Claus says he discovered Sunny passed out in her bathroom, her “sanctuary,” an almost religious word ironically attributed to a very non-spiritual place, He tells a doubting Alan, “I don’t know the whole truth.” That goes for the audience as well. As Alan says it’s very difficult to trust a man one doesn’t understand. Alan says to Claus, “You’re a very strange man.” To which, Claus responds, “You have no idea.” He admits not only to his “strangeness,” which is off-putting, but that Alan can’t fathom him, and neither can we.

The team eventually gets tests that show that the prosecution’s evidence of residual insulin on a hypodermic needle was inconclusive. Sunny was hypoglycemic, and then would overdose on sweets, which could lead to overcompensation by the body to produce insulin. Alan is able to introduce the new evidence despite the fact the case is on appeal by citing a Rhode Island Supreme Court justice’s prior ruling. They are able to reverse the convictions.

But Alan and Sarah tell Alan’s son two differing versions of what could have happened. Sunny was suicidal, could have taken too many medications, wanted the windows opened, and passed out in her bathroom while Claus was walking the dogs, exercising, and showering. She was ready to pee, and that’s how her nightgown was hiked up. Or, Claus opened the windows and dragged her into the bathroom, which hiked up the sleep clothes, and his actions helped the barbiturates on the way to her destruction, So, we are still in the dark.

Sunny’s last words are that we will only know the truth “When you get where I am,” which means not in this life. After Alan tells Claus about the good news, Alan, again showing the division on how he lives his life, says to him, “Legally, this was an important victory. Morally, you’re on your own.”

As are we.