Review of Guilty as Sin (2010) by Thomas H — 01 Oct 2016

Already, Guilty as Sin is part of a tradition of cinema that can feel free of the corruption of reality, opposing it and doing so coolly. The premise is traditional, and the filmmaking is to represent ideology - the ideology of evolution.

However, what makes Guilty as Sin extra special is its specific layer of eeriness. The world of the film is pretty, where everything looks elegant, and even alien (the courtroom in particular denotes this reality); the profession of law is not what it is relative to reality, but, it's purpose is to promote art's identity of conflation. The visual style of Guilty as Sin is exotic, to the degree that despite an already intriguing and sinister plot synopsis, the viewer should experience this 1993 thriller with dread, and anticipation.

As a one time viewer, it amazes me how much I remember the film. De Mornay is her career-defining role with this film, and her co-star Don Johnson is so convincing as the part of the dubious and wicked client that it was hard for me to imagine Johnson playing any other part.

Numerous times, the script of Guilty as Sin shows weird things - even relative to its genre - and it works to the effect of being genuinely confusing. It isn't that the characters behave in strange ways, but more that the overall reality is alien, and the characters within it are like a trapped normality.

Guilty as Sin works. It represents the crime drama, and legal thriller well. I would even say that Guilty as Sin is a superior kind of art to Blade Runner, or to something like Pulp Fiction or Titanic: none of those three films have the instinctive power of Guilty as Sin, and its level of suggestive intellect.

Most importantly, Guilty as Sin is why art and cinema exists. It is bizarre and rationality conflated, yet done so with a style that doesn't offend or irritate or just senselessly confuse the viewer. Like I said, the world of Guilty as Sin is demonic and alien, showing its characters occupying weird-looking environments, but the nature of the story rationalises this strange surface-reality. The events of the story itself are also strange at times, but it works because of the foundation of purpose: Guilty as Sin is a popcorn film, intelligently equipped with intellect.

If I reflect on films like this year's Love and Friendship, or 2004's Crash, or a drama series like Downton Abbey, Guilty as Sin becomes all the more powerful, because of my knowledge that the root purpose of Guilty as Sin is to inspire its audience using reality, but not reflecting reality.

Rebecca De Mornay is the symbol of reality's evolution, in this film.