Whether it’s because notions like truth and fairness demand more attention than ever in a chaotically unjust world, or because some cinematic traditions need revitalizing, filmmakers have been returning to the courtroom genre lately. After Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2” and the elegant, modern-day twist it put on Sidney Lumet’s 1957 classic “12 Angry Men,” it’s now the turn of writer-directors Jim Sheridan and David Merriman to revive the spirit of Lumet and Otto Preminger with the terrific “Re-Creation.”
Six-time Oscar nominee Sheridan is no stranger to the conventions of a legal thriller, having directed one of its finest examples in 1993 with “In The Name of the Father,” depicting the real-life case of the falsely accused Guildford Four in the 1974 IRA bombings. With “Re-Creation,” he and Merriman tackle another true story: the highly publicized 1996 murder of French filmmaker Toscan du Plantier, already the subject of various podcasts and documentaries.
In their version, the filmmakers spin a stylish and entirely fictionalized yarn, using the juror room construct as a Lumet homage. In real life, the 39-year-old du Plantier was found dead near the gate of her West Cork vacation residence, with more than 50 wounds on her body. British journalist Ian Bailey was named as the prime suspect shortly after, despite a complete lack of DNA evidence, and eventually got convicted in absentia in 2019 by the French court. (Ireland refused to extradite him, and Bailey, who denied any involvement in the murder, passed away in 2024 from an apparent cardiac arrest near his home in Ireland.)
While the case is unsolved to this date, Sheridan and Merriman don’t attempt to answer the whodunit of it all. That’s because they are more concerned with the “who didn’t do it” angle in building a sharply convincing case for how it couldn’t have been Bailey, by imagining what might have happened had he been tried for murder in Ireland. And yet “Re-Creation” isn’t only about Bailey or this particular case —don’t be intimidated if you barely possess a basic, Wikipedia-level knowledge of the events.
What the film instead supplies is a skillful blend of “12 Angry Men” and the exciting beats of a true-crime podcast, ultimately painting a rich portrait of all shades of humanity: our convictions, prejudices, and in our best moments, deep reserves of logic and compassion. In arguing — sometimes civilly, sometimes not — the details of the case, the 12 men and women in the room reflect something deeply truthful about all of us, as individuals and as a society.
As the formula goes, only one participant among the dozen is unsure of Bailey’s guilt when all the others hastily vote “guilty.” She is Juror #8, played superbly by Vicky Krieps with an undercurrent of restless frustration, a bearing she perfected in “Corsage” and “Phantom Thread.” Here, she stands her ground with fearless determination against a displeased room who’d rather get swayed by the media, vote “guilty,” and go home early. But #8 has a conscience she has to answer to first and foremost. She believes and insists on several occasions (as if to spell out Sheridan and Merriman’s narrative ambitions with the film) that they owe du Plantier a full, proper discussion. They owe her their time at the very least. She is right, they do.
One of the many delights of “Re-Creation” is getting to watch Sheridan in one of his rare screen appearances. He is Juror #1, often leading the conversation, and counting the votes after each major deliberation. Slowly and believably, the room turns towards doubt, and the process that unfolds is surprisingly electrifying over the course of a tightly calibrated 89 minutes, especially considering the limited visual assets Sheridan and Merriman have at their disposal given the mostly single-room setting.
Among the key opponents — that is, the most vocal “guilty” voter — is #3, perhaps the story’s most intricately written character, brought to life by John Connors with fiery precision. At first, he comes across (at least in today’s terms), as an “as a father of a daughter” type, a well-meaning man who thinks his job is to protect women based on common norms of masculinity and chivalry. Various clashes occur in the room based on social class, race, and otherwise.
But for a while, gender takes center stage as the main divide, sometimes ironically. Some women, including #8, cast reasonable doubt on Bailey’s alleged guilt. Claiming to defend a dead woman’s right to justice, #3 sometimes talks over, or even yells at, other women who oppose him. Across intensifying arguments expertly crafted on the page and character backstories that gradually deepen, Sheridan and Merriman smartly underscore different forms of misogyny, the hidden depths of our prejudices, and the ways trauma informs how we engage with the world around us.
But “Re-Creation” isn’t out to vilify anyone. Ultimately, this is a hopeful film that wants to believe in the potential of thinking, empathetic human beings to actively listen, to sensibly evaluate, to apologize, and to form opinions, as well as to revisit those opinions based on available facts. In other words, it wants to remind us of the qualities and faculties that everyone should hold dear.
In one of the most cinematically inspired instances of this reminder, the jurors darken the room to simulate the night of du Plantier’s death. Collectively, with the aid of ingenious lighting and sophisticated camera moves, they reenact how du Plantier and her assailant might have moved through the spaces with the tools and items of clothing they had on. It’s a breathtaking scene, one that eventually holds a mirror to us all, like the rest of this slickly stunning chamber piece.
variety.com
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