Director: Joel Schumacher
Writers: John Grisham, Akiva Goldsman, Robert Getchell
Stars: Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones, Brand Renfro
Synopsis: A young boy who witnessed the suicide of a mafia lawyer hires an attorney to protect him when the District Attorney tries to use him to take down a mob family.
I still remember the first time I saw The Client. It was a Friday, one of my two days off from school. My dad had rented the VHS as usual. It was in 1995, I was 7. As a wide-eyed and very imaginative neurodivergent kid, films to me were portals to a faraway world, where kids got in danger and adults treated them with wisdom and kindness…sometimes.
Everyone’s reason for watching this film was different back then. My dad was, and always will be, a big Tommy Lee Jones fan. My mom was bored and preferred a Jean Claude Van Damme or a Tom Cruise film. I would devour whatever film my dad rented, and my little sister tagged along, clinging to her big sister for guidance. “Is that a good movie?” “I believe so,” I’d shrug, hiding my overt enthusiasm over something as silly as movie night, since every night in my family was movie night.
As a former bookworm, I read all of John Grisham novels as a teen. I loved his style of legal thrillers, but also his characters. I loved how there was always a Don Quixote trope to flirt with, a David and Goliath theme. This feature is one of those opportunities to see Grisham’s themes and style fully fleshed out.
The first thing I remember about The Client is Susan Sarandon. As a kid, I loved Sarandon. To me, she was a strange-looking lady, all red hair and so many F-bombs. She always smoked or drank -hadn’t seen Dead Man Walking thankfully till later in life when she played a nun- and took no BS from anyone. The fact that the whole film universe revolved around her and a little kid was exhilarating to me.
I love serious films where kids get to interact with adults. Those were the happy days before we grimly realized what most of these child actors went through behind the scenes and in the dark recesses of big Hollywood studios. But as a young girl, a child among the adults always made the movie feel better for me. Especially if the child actor was exceptionally gifted. The late Brad Renfro. who played Mark, was brilliant.
Mark was everything I wanted to be as a kid; street-smart, snarky, cute, and unafraid of adults. He was a protective older brother and a good son. Now that I watch the film with adult eyes, I can see how terrified he was of them, but how he tried to play it cool to survive. Another thing that I noticed as I grew up was how the system harshly treats poor kids. Being poor is always an anomaly, but being a poor child is a bigger disability than most people think. It exposes kids to unimaginable injustice, cruelty, and predatory behavior. Children are vulnerable and voiceless, and if their parents cannot be the voice they rightfully deserve, they will get lost between the crushing feet of adults, organized systems, and governmental inadequacies in meeting their needs and protecting them. The film makes an excellent point of showing the effect of poverty, physical abuse, and an unstable family structure on children, along with the consequences they face because of that.
But a film like that means nothing without its main protagonist and no, that’s not Jones as a sleaze-ball, slick-style, pompous, Bible-quoting US attorney named Reverend Roy Foltrigg. It’s Sarandon as the down-on-her-luck hero of this journey. The first moment we see Reggie Love, the red-haired lawyer with a mouth on her, and compassion she hides behind her calm exterior, she’s trying to open a window, and she’s on her desk, wearing a cute skirt and a sleeveless blouse. She turns and it’s Sarandon in her ‘90s rizz and glory. She’s spectacular and I instantly remember falling in love with her all over again.
The misogyny and sexism that a female lawyer is treated with in this film, strikes me as scary because it is handled as the norm, as if it is truly expected of people to dismiss her and call her honey and darling. Even her client, a poor eleven-year-old boy, doesn’t respect her initially. Not to mention her state as a former mental health patient, and how she is shamed for having gone down a rocky road of inebriety and drug addiction. As a woman, all of these scenes are tough to watch, back then nothing hit a nerve. I didn’t experience the pain I felt right now -as someone constantly struggling with mental health issues- as I watched people humiliating and belittling a woman who finally got her wits together and decided to rise from the ashes.
What I find amusing are all the Elvis Presley references in this film. Those were the least of my concerns when I watched it in 1995, something I never would have noticed or paid attention to. Joel Schumacher brilliantly captures the Memphis spirit and heightens the tension in the climactic confession scene, when Mark sits down with his lawyer and bares his soul, admitting for the first time in front of an adult that he is afraid.It’s difficult now to watch the film without remembering Renfro’s tragic death at the young age of 25. As millennials, we are doomed with our teenage crushes from him to River Phoenix, Jonathan Brandis, and even Heath Ledger. It’s strange how you can rarely take the context out of the film, how it can both hurt and elevate the performance or the memory of watching it. Regardless of all the narrative surrounding it, The Client is a compelling legal thriller that cannot be made today, not even straight to streaming because what kind of audience reception would they analyze for content starring a fresh-faced child actor and a not-your-typical leading lady?
