Trial by Fire (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Based on the galvanizing New Yorker article of the same name, Trial by Fire plays much like an op-ed manifesto against the death penalty. And for good reason. The story concerns Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed by the state of Texas in 2004 for the deaths of his three children over a decade earlier. The devastating and controversial story is pretty straightforward here, as we follow Willingham through his trial, incarceration, and sentencing. As a sort of parallel, we see a playwright named Elizabeth Gilbert who grows attached to the accused man and fights for his vindication.

The movie makes the most sense when the two leads share a scene. Jack O'Connell and Laura Dern play expertly off each other, and their watery eyes seem ready-made to search for hope and humanity in each other. I found Gilbert's story the more interesting of the two dramatized here simply because I was less familiar with it, and Dern is firing on all fronts in what amounts to a performative polemic. Gilbert entered the prison system as a volunteer pen pal; soon she meets Willingham face to face and discovers a man she is sure is innocent. Her friends and others suggest more than once she's in it for prurient purposes -- who can forget the women chasing after Ted Bundy and Charles Manson? -- but she remains steadfast and intentional.

It's a fascinating story, but this film never quite manages to ignite itself. The characters seem realistic and deep, and of course the injustice of it all is incendiary, but director Edward Zwick here offers little to no sense of style for the proceedings. The workmanlike film lumbers onward to its well-known conclusion with scarcely enough dramatic energy to inspire hope or much interest. Perhaps this is partly intentional, as a sort of dirge for criminal reform or, more classically, some kind of tragic call to action. And while I'm glad writer Geoffrey S. Fletcher seems to stick to the New Yorker article fairly closely, I can't help but want to read it again. I remember reading it made me feel excited, scared, horrified, and righteously angry. This movie just made me feel sad.