Coupable d'ignorance

A sweet and moving story about poor people and the state government; how things can go terribly wrong with strong acting by Tyne Daly as Kathryn Messenger.

This movie shows the depths of the love of a parent and the determination to make wrongs right. Great film!

I just watched this movie and I thought it was very good and it showed the trials of being poor is society at that time. Today it is not as bad but you can still get stuck in the system and lost in the cracks. Back then so many families were torn apart for no reason. Greed, lust, lying, and having money could get you everything and the poor just got poorer. There were two classes, the have and the have not classes. I came from a middle class family but my father did not. He would have been considered poor white trash. When he died he had a considerable bank account and a home that was paid off. My mother wants for nothing even now when dad has been gone for 10 years. Being poor is a matter is circumstance and not usually a life choice as was shown in this film. They did not choose to live that way and aspired to live better. Circumstances can be changed! I enjoyed this movie and would probably buy it if on DVD.

It still happens, and the Messenger story is a sad one. This occurred in Florida in 1951, and if you have ever lived in this "right to work state" oppression does still go on, in subtler forms.

A previous review hinted at inbreeding, on the part of the victim. Perhaps he has worked in the Florida jail system. Is a person to be condemned because of their family? Apparently, some reactionaries believe so. Just as they probably believe in state "vouchers" recently declared illegal by the Florida Supreme Court.

This is an important story which people should be exposed to; there is still injustice occurring; whether or not people accept this depends, I guess, on whether or not their son or daughter ends up in a Florida prison. Then they may start to care about their constitutional rights, and how they are being violated.

Feels almost abridged, in the sense that some characters don't get their comeuppance. However, it's perhaps more truthful in its depiction of the criminalisation of the working poor in the 1950s because of this. Tyne Daly's character is the main focus and she plays every beat realistically. Her performance and the story make this film worth a watch, even if it's not completely satisfying due to predictability and hurried production values.