Susan Sarandon, in The Client

approximately 37 minutes and 21 seconds

32.2% of the film

The film

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.

You can read my short review of the film just by clicking HERE.

The Client is an action flick, so the focus is not meant to be on character development or stuff that might end up too deep. And that’s fine, because it’s not a bad suspense/thriller, even though it has its downfalls mainly due to the screenplay. Sarandon and especially Brad Renfro deliver good performances.

Susan Sarandon as Reggie Love

We don’t get to see Susan Sarandon on screen, nor do we get to hear anything about her character, until the film had already approximately reached its 28th minute. While I’m not saying we’re dealing with category fraud, the film’s true leading character is the client, the boy she’s representing and protecting. Even so: Susan might show up quite late in the film, but from there on she clearly represents the voice of justice and the most emotionally complex character that the film has to offer.

Susan plays Regina ‘Reggie’ Love, a lawyer who is accidentally chosen to represent a client who happens to know some secrets about a mob murder. The client is a loud mouthed 11 year old boy and Regina becomes his protector and also a kind of a mother figure. Because, you see, Regina has secrets of her own: a history of drugs and alcohol abuse and grown-up children that don’t want to see her. The role sounds more of a challenge than it actually is; what we get to find out is mostly because of Susan rather than because of the screenplay.

The character has two big elements defining it: first there’s the brave lawyer-woman who can face anything and then there’s the fragile Reggie, a person who has been through a lot and she’s a survivor of her own mistakes. The one we notice the most is the fierce lawyer.

Susan Sarandon usually inspires that respect that brings some kind of seriousness and professional-believability to most of her roles. Here, she’s no different: I totally believe her in the role because I sense this woman is intelligent. Susan makes Reggie powerful, but not rigid, she makes her fun, cool, but also gives her that winning touch that pretty much makes her the hero of the film. Reggie represents justice and, despite her own doubts at times, she succeeds in what she sets up to do.

By doing that, Susan really wins the sympathy of the viewer. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but that’s it: I LIKE Reggie and I want her to win; everything. And as you know: what I feel for the character usually influences my perspective on the performance; the emotional side of it counts a lot from where I’m standing. But even considering this great quality, there’s still a feeling of I’m not seeing enough.

Her emotional moment when she confesses about her past and talks about her children is wonderful, that’s a great scene played beautifully by Susan. Unfortunately, except for this scene and a couple of crumbs here and there, the screenplay doesn’t rise to the occasion in giving her the character she deserves. She is great with that she has, she’s tough and brave in the lawyery scenes, she’s vulnerable when it’s needed, but lacks the BIG moment to take the performance to greatness.

Is Sarandon better than her usual self? Probably not, but she’s such a good actress that even her regular good is above others’ performances and definitely above the screenplay. She brings charisma and intelligence to the role and those are bonus points, but when you have just 30-something minutes on screen, in a regular suspense flick, you still get the feeling something’s missing. I don’t know, performances this year become harder and harder to read; but this is a strong for Susan.

Susan Sarandon, in Lorenzo's Oil

approximately 63 minutes and 22 seconds
50.5% of the film

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The film

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A boy develops a disease so rare that nobody is working on a cure, so his father decides to learn all about it and tackle the problem himself.

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You can find my short review of the film just by clicking HERE.

It’s actually an interesting story if you get past the direction mistakes and Nick Nolte’s awful accent and quite bad performance. It’ a tv movie disguised as cinema.

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Susan Sarandon as Michaela Odone

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I remember the days when Susan Sarandon used to be the image of strong, opinionated mature women. Her late 80s and 90s performances made her one of the most respected Hollywood actresses. Her 90s lineup of 4 Best Actress nominations in 5 years is not to be taken for granted. Those were all strong, meaningful performances, often enough above the material. This performance of hers in Lorenzo’s Oil is not an exception.

Susan plays the mother of Lorenzo, a little boy dying from a very rare disease, so, while running out of time, she and her husband try to find a cure or a treatment for the kid. Let’s be honest: the role of Michaela is almost a cliché. She’s the strong parent who won’t give up on her son’s life. She’s stubborn, she has a temperament problem, she loves him more than anything and won’t take bullshit from anybody. It’s the type of mother lion role: protective, maternal, fierce. Fortunately enough, we get Susan to play her, so the role is dug out of mediocrity.

First, Susan brings intelligence to the table. We look at her and we believe the character as both an intelligent, mature, 40-something woman, but we also see the mother, the softer side, it’s in the way she talks the boy. Her nicely portrayed relationship with Lorenzo is good for the performance, as a nuance to a mostly dehumanized role. We do not know Michaela, but we discover her through her connection to the kid and by the way she confronts them all.

When the film starts, she’s overshadowed by the real centre-story of the film: the disease affecting the boy and their lives. We see Michaela only with her husband by her side, as the devoted parents try to uncover this disease. There aren’t any moments to allow Susan to stand out, but we see her there and her intelligence reassures the viewer that this is a serious film.

To me, what makes this a very good performance can be identified in two major scenes. The first one is also the most heartbreaking moment in Lorenzo’s Oil. It’s around the middle of the film, the doctors don’t know what to do with Lorenzo and we get the idea that he might die. In the privacy of the hospital room, Michaela sits on a chair with her very sick & struggling child in her arms. She has tears in her eyes and she looks at him and she’s finally ready to let him die. When she says you fly as fast as you can to baby Jesus, we’re already melted (trust me!). The line can sound corny, but Susan puts so much devotion into this performance that you buy every second of it and the result is crazy heartbreaking (even though we know he’s not going to die in the middle of the film) because we see a mother ready to accept the biggest sacrifice.

The second one is sometimes before the ending: her husband comes to tell her that although their son will be kept alive, the scientific proof is that he is not able to communicate with them, he’s not even able to hear what his mother’s saying. Confronting this truth is devastating to Michaela, as she had been talking to the paralyzed boy, reassuring him and hoping he understands her. Susan’s achievement here is expressing emotion even before opening her mouth. She sits quietly, not moving, just listening to what her husband tells her. Her eyes do all the work, expressing the tragedy and the fact that she’s ready to admit this truth. All their work will help cure other children, as it’s too late now for their own.

Susan gives a strong, motherly performance. The role is a cliché and the film is no masterpiece. But with acting experience on her side, Susan is so believable in creating this woman that the kindness and honesty of her emotions get to us and the performance becomes not just essential to the film, but also the one humanizing factor and the true connection between the dramatic story and the viewer. It’s a 3.5, but I’ll go with .

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*** With this being the 5th performance of 1992, I'm gonna post the conclusions in a couple of days. It went very fast, partly because I want to see more and more Best Actress years; partly because I'm unhappily unemployed and have lots of time on my hands :)