MIRANDA'S VICTIM - Mark Reviews Movies

Miranda's Victim, Vertical

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 5, 2023

Two competing ideas can exist at once, be true, and be right. That's certainly the case with the story at the heart of Miranda's Victim, an ambitious legal drama about the underlying morality of the law that is, unfortunately, burdened by its own ambition.

J. Craig Stiles' screenplay dramatizes the events leading up to, the argument of and against, and the aftermath of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Miranda v. Arizona. Pretty much everyone will know that decision for its most common effect: the very concept of one's "Miranda rights," which protect someone arrested of a crime from potential self-incrimination and with the knowledge that they are entitled to legal representation.

Until that court decision in 1966, there was not any set standard or agreement to these Constitutional rights. That ruling changed it, inarguably for the better, based on the principles of law and the spirit of the country's founding document.

That is one truth. The other is that, because of this ruling, one man's conviction was made invalid, based on the way the police acted or, more appropriately, didn't act when it came to the process of his arrest. Based on the evidence at the first trial, this man was found guilty of heinous crimes, namely kidnapping and rape. The deeper truth to this is that at least one woman, as well as others who may not have come forward, had to endure the trauma of one investigation and one trial, only to have what she saw as justice being tossed aside and to be forced to go through the entire process again.

The point of Stiles and director Michelle Danner's movie, then, is to present both of these ideas, to see them for some underlying truth about the legal system, and to force us to ask tough questions about the balance of the rights of the accused and the rights of the victim. It's an admirable conceit, but the movie attempts to do so much that it shortchanges both the personal stories and the legal side of its narrative.

The eponymous victim is Patricia "Trish" Weir (Abigail Breslin), an 18-year-old woman living with her mother (played by Mireille Enos) and older sister Ann (Emily VanCamp) in suburban Phoenix. On her usual walk home from work one night, a man grabs Trish, forces her into the backseat of a car, and binds her, and drives her out to the desert. Despite the objections of her mother—who worries more about Trish's reputation than what happened to her—and with the support of Ann, Trish reports the abduction and sexual assault to the police.

As the title suggests, Trish's perspective is the primary one here, and in Breslin's dynamic performance of immediate and linger trauma, the movie has one obvious element working in its favor (VanCamp is quite good, too, although the character, like a few here, more or less disappears once her use in the plot is finished). The focus doesn't limit the narrative's point of view, though, as becomes clear once the police get to work, the trial commences, and the appeal process is set in motion. There are an abundance of characters here, most of them thinly drawn and restricted to the ways in which they serve the story.

The other important figure, of course, is Ernesto Miranda (Sebastian Quinn), the man who confesses to the crimes against Trish, is tried, and, initially, is convicted. Quinn plays the man as something of a blank slate, because the movie itself seems hesitant to acknowledge or call question upon his guilt. His existence in this story is purely a matter of legal consequence, as his original attorney (played by Andy Garcia) believes the confession was written under implied threat and John Flynn (Ryan Phillippe), a lawyer hired by the ACLU to argue Ernesto's case before the U.S. Supreme Court, is certain he can make that case to the highest court in the land.

The approach of the movie, then, is one of conflicting but theoretically fascinating tones. On the one side, we have the subjective and personal handling of Trish's story, as she deals with trauma and various figures of control in her life, and it's clear the movie's heart is with her. On the other, we have the objective, mostly procedural dramatization of Ernesto's case within the legal system, as various lawyers debate in and outside courtrooms, and it's apparent the movie's mind is with these scenes.

The dichotomy is somewhat intriguing, and in stronger hands, material such as this, which tries to balance the concept and the harsh realities of justice, might have worked. Here, though, too much of the attempt feels routine, while some of it comes across as manipulative (any scene that has Trish dealing with family members who are presented as villains, as well as a flashback to the crime that arrives so late that it feels exploitative) or clunky (The song choice when Trish enters a courtroom for a second trial is somehow equally too obvious and completely inappropriate).

It's also, unfortunately, such a straightforward portrayal of these events that it comes across as a purely routine legal drama. Miranda's Victim wants to ask some big questions about law, but it's mostly going through the motions.

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