Nuts

Claudia Draper is an expensive call girl. She killed a client and does not deny it; she says she was defending herself. Her family makes a plan: if she is declared mentally ill she will not stand trial and the matter will close. Claudia refuses. What is happening in the courtroom is not a trial but a competency hearing; what is to be decided is whether she is fit to be tried. She attacks her own lawyer and the court appoints her a new one. Aaron Levinsky handles divorces and does not want the job. The more Claudia talks the clearer it becomes why the family is in such a hurry. Martin Ritt directs. Barbra Streisand plays Claudia and Richard Dreyfuss her lawyer; Maureen Stapleton and Karl Malden are in the cast. It is an American production. The source is Tom Topor's stage play. Streisand produced the film and wrote its music herself. The matter it treats is a psychiatric report turned into a means of silencing; the film takes that as its direct subject. The narrative does not make Claudia likeable; she shouts, she insults, and she makes nothing easy for anyone. Most of it takes place in the courtroom and the stage origin shows. The section about the family's past opens at the end and turns the direction of the narrative. Its limit is form; the narrative looks like theatre, the pace is low, and the ending resolves in a speech. Who it is for: viewers who like courtroom drama and films built on performance. Who it is not for: it is loud, confined, and the ending explanatory.