Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Edward Zwick, Netflix.
Totally captivating, Trial by Fire is based on the true story of Cameron Todd Willingham, an innocent death‑row inmate who was sentenced to death for the ‘murder’ of his three children by arson in 1991. He was executed in 2004.
He insisted upon his innocence in the deaths of his daughters and refused an offer to plead guilty in return for a life sentence.
The film opens and it’s obvious there are some irregularities at Willingham’s trial. He was a notorious figure in the small town of Corsicana, Texas; a drinker, short-tempered and had an explosive relationship with his wife Stacy (played by Emily Meade).
The fire engulfed their tiny house, but the investigation appears hurried, almost as if arson was the only option. The reasons why witnesses change their stories at the trial are incomprehensible, including the neighbour who saw Willingham breaking windows, trying to get back into the house, suddenly testifying that he seemed more worried about his car and that he didn’t appear to be upset at all.
While Edward Zwick’s approach to the film is skilful, it moves slowly, and the struggle is apparent in the fight of ethics against the state of Texas that wronged Willingham with blame, inducements and unprincipled sleuths.
Jack O’Connell stars as Willingham and Laura Dern is Elizabeth Gilbert, the playwright who takes an interest in Willingham’s case, who enters the story through a prison outreach program, volunteering to correspond with a prisoner. Their series of conversations through the glass partition are central to the film revealing subtle changes in both their characters.
Gilbert’s switches from a shy and unsure woman, dealing with her own problems — a dying ex-husband and two teenage kids who don’t understand her obsession with a murderer — to an outspoken advocate of the man on death row.
Willingham does not have money so his defence, and attorney, are dreary. His transformation to maturity is gradual from behind the prison bars.
It was David Grann’s investigative article in The New Yorker titled ‘Trial by Fire’ in 2009 that was adapted into this 2018 film. The subhead was: ‘Did Texas execute an innocent man?’ Zwick and screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher stick close to the chronology used by Grann.
Trial By Fire is an odd mix of inclusions, but more time should have been spent to elaborate on the melodrama surrounding Gilbert, a keen supporter of Willingham’s innocence.
