The Client

Joel Schumacher refused a trained child actor, saying most are coached into a cornflake commercial way of talking to directors. His casting director Mali Finn went to nine cities and auditioned 6,000 boys; Schumacher wanted a real kid with a real accent. Brad Renfro had never been in a film, and brought his Memphis speech with him. The weight sits on the bargaining between Reggie Love, a lawyer who has stopped drinking, and an eleven year old who has worked out that what he knows is his only card. The ending rewards the careerist rather than punishing the criminal: the prosecutor Foltrigg gets his headlines and says he will run for governor. Susan Sarandon was nominated for Best Actress at the 67th Academy Awards and lost to Jessica Lange for Blue Sky, but the same performance won her Best Actress in a Leading Role at the 48th British Academy Film Awards. A good fit if you want the tension carried by whether the boy will talk, and by what he can extract in return. Not for anyone who cannot sit with children in such scenes: the film opens on a suicide attempt, moves to a gun placed in a mouth, and the younger brother stops speaking and spends the story in hospital.