sibling helpervy

Do you have Cinemagic in Chicago? What is the name of your movie theater chain? Here it's Cinemagic.

Today I went to see a noon showing (love the noon movie!) of Conviction, the one about the innocent brother who gets locked up for life and his sister who gets a GED, BA and law degree so she can be his lawyer. You love to cry, so you would love this movie. I forgot all about DNA testing not really happening until the late 80s or something. I guess about 300 innocent people have been released or unconvicted because of it. This lady's brother was one of them.

So, the cast was great and it was set in a little Massachusetts town. I love how Massachusetts is either boarding school/Harvard or trashville. Conviction=total trashville. Great accents. Clea DuVall and Juliette Lewis play drunk old lady types, angry ones, and ex-lovers of the non murdering brother. Hilary Swank plays the sister, and Sam Rockwell is the brother. There are some great flashbacks to their childhood, how their mom sucked and how they were close. Then some bits here and there about a bad cop and how the brother is whacky and a bit of a loose cannon. Then-- he goes to jail! Sister goes to law school! She becomes friends with Minnie Driver! She eventually finds the evidence box and get DNA testing! He's innocent but shit! The prosecutor says he could be an accomplice! So then they have to get statements from the old witnesses that lied about him admitting to the murder! Even though you know the ending, because the story had been all over the place, sort of, it's still a surprise that this lady pulls it off. It sort of destroys her marriage but it seems like that's okay because her jerk-ex kind of forbid her from going to college anyway. And the cop who arrested the brother is such a witch! Like a framing witch! Ugh. The law is pretty yucky.

I feel like this one could make it to the Oscars, what with the cast and the story and all, so I'm glad I saw it. It felt mostly like a maintenance see, however. You know?