It makes sense that David E. Kelley would find his way back to the work of Scott Turow, one of the most popular authors of his era. They’re kindred spirits in a sense, both former attorneys who used their legal expertise to craft bestselling books or highly-rated TV mysteries. Turow came out of the gates on fire with a book that he would never really top in terms of popularity, 1987’s “Presumed Innocent,” made into a hit film with Harrison Ford in 1990 and now remade 34 years later as an Apple TV+ mini-series with Jake Gyllenhaal in the role of an ace prosecutor turned #1 suspect. As with so many of the recent Kelley adaptations, the runtime requirements of a prestige mini-series becomes a hindrance, allowing for more time to pick apart narrative inconsistencies and realize how characters are being used. Turow’s original book and the subsequent film worked due to the immediacy that inherently dissipates when a mystery is stretched over eight hours instead of two. It doesn’t help that Kelley’s dialogue and character depth here can’t fill in the gaps created by the stretched narrative, despite the best efforts of one of the best ensembles on streaming service.
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Kelley wastes little time getting to the mystery of “Presumed Innocent” as prosecutor Rusty Sabich (Gyllenhaal) is called to the scene of a brutal murder, one that ended with the victim tied up and posed in a manner that recalls a recent trial led by Sabich. He led that prosecution with the victim, Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve), with whom he was also having a torrid affair. That means Rusty’s fingerprints and DNA are all over the crime scene, and his “presumed guilt” gets more intense when it’s discovered that Carolyn was pregnant and Rusty was the dad. As if that’s not bad enough, text messages make it seem like Rusty was obsessed with Carolyn, who was trying to leave him behind. Did he snap and kill her?
The Polhemus murder comes about during a reelection campaign for Rusty’s boss Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp), and Horgan’s inter-office nemesis Nico Della Guardia (O-T Fagbenle) uses the opportunity to campaign his way into Horgan’s job. After all, Horgan can’t protect his own people. Della Guardia coming to power with his closest ally Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgaard) gives “Presumed Innocent” the thrust of its tension in that these two will do anything to take down Rusty once they get the power to do so. It makes for a bizarrely insulated and often unbelievable show wherein Nico and Rusty are sketched as so intent on winning this case that they become almost cartoonish in their plotting and scheming. When a great actor like Peter Sarsgaard is reduced by a character that feels this inconsistent, one must look at the writing that refuses to give Tommy any inner monologue beyond some twisted professional vengeance. There’s a version of “Presumed Innocent” that reaches for the humanity of its characters more, but Kelley is so intent on the soap opera courtroom dynamics that he can’t be bothered to do that, at least not at the office.
The show handles its characters better outside of the legal arena. In the Sabich living room, Oscar nominee Ruth Negga gets to shine as Rusty’s wife, Barbara, doing so much with another underwritten role. Kelley can’t decide whether Barbara is a loyal partner or merely trying to outlast a storm before she moves on with her life, but Negga consistently makes the small beats work. Scenes in which she develops a flirtatious relationship with a bartender often feel out of a more thoughtful show than the bulk of “Presumed Innocent.” Still, Kelley and his team repeatedly let down their female characters. Carolyn is a catalyst for a male attorney’s crisis, never made three-dimensional, even in flashbacks. Lily Rabe, Elizabeth Marvel, and Noma Dumezweni are wasted in parts that feel like cogs in the plot machine. Even Gyllenhaal, a typically very good actor, can’t figure out his character, one whose angry outbursts feel more plot-driven than true.
Now, some would argue that all of these shallow characters are Turow’s fault and that this kind of entertainment is inherently plot-driven instead of nuanced, but that’s more easily forgivable in a pageturner or a two-hour movie. When one has to spend eight hours with insincere dialogue and unbelievable plot twists, the seams and flaws in the storytelling become an extra weight on a production that brings it down, a common problem in the Kelley Universe lately as he has actively chased the success of “Big Little Lies” with inferior mystery-driven mini-series like “The Undoing,” “Anatomy of a Scandal,” and “A Man in Full.”
It feels like critics have become broken records when it comes to the prevalence of mini-series that can’t sustain their episode order. Still, it truly is at the core of why “Presumed Innocent” falters because this kind of storytelling requires urgency that so often dissipates over multiple hours of TV. It can be done well. Kelley has done it well himself recently with projects like the first season of “Big Little Lies” and the underrated “Love & Death,” but it requires not just stretching a narrative but enriching it through subtlety and nuance that a film runtime doesn’t allow. Viewers need more than a whodunit to hold them for eight hours. Creators who don’t realize that are presuming you’re easily entertained. [C]
“Presumed Innocent” premieres on Apple TV+ on June 12, 2024.