And the Sea Will Tell

Told in flashback this true-crime mini-series is very hard to follow. Having read the book several years prior to viewing the movie was quite a help to me. The film does present some questions to the viewer in a very subtle manner, but upon closer inspection, one has to wonder if Bugliosi was just trying to salve his conscience for defending a murderer. The movie shows that Bugliosi is just as adept in jury manipulation as a defense attorney as he was as a prosecutor. This one is easy to pass up.

I read the book a few years after it was published, but I just discovered that they had made this TV movie only recently. It was difficult to track down, but I got a copy. It was worth the time and effort and money.

The story of And the Sea Will Tell is completely fascinating. I read most of the long book on a long flight (I'd love to read it again, but no longer have my copy). The movie does a terrific job of telling this story from start to finish. I would suggest reading the book first.

There are a lot of TV movie screw-ups in the film bit they don't take away from such a great story. For example, when they first see land in Palmyra, there are mountains when the island is a tiny atoll just above sea level. And obviously, there was no diction coach on set to steer Rachael Ward through some American vowels. She had many moments revealing her English roots. Once again, the story survives.

P.S. There is no way the girlfriend was innocent. She should still be in prison. I would imagine that Bugliosi was doing her. It shows once again, if you have money in America, you can literally get away with murder.

For a TV miniseries based on a true crime thriller, you'd expect standard movie-of-the-week fare. And The Sea Will Tell is instead a pretty taut thriller, well-written, well-acted and artfully put together. I'm convinced that this film isn't more well known because it had the misfortune to air for the first time the very night the ground campaign began during the first Gulf War. If you were watching CNN (and who wasn't), you missed it.

Rachel Ward, a highly underrated actress, is slightly miscast as the naive "hippie" waif Jennifer Jenkins, but she makes the best of a pretty meaty role, and her chemistry with Richard Crenna is spot-on. There's less chemistry between her and Hart Bochner, but his performance is excellent--he's certainly come a long way from his cartoonish portrayal of a slimy executive in Die Hard ("Hans...boobie...would I lie to you?"). The whole series, however, is stolen by James Brolin and Deidre Hall. The interweaving of flashbacks to the characters' time on the island with the courtroom scenes is skillfully done--something that, incidentally, Buglioisi failed to do well in the book this film is based on.

There's also some attention to detail here, and even (GASP!) some approaches at mise-en-scene. The Palmyra scenes, though colorful and lush, have a strange darkness and malevolence about them. I especially like the moody magic-hour sky in the oft-shown sequence of Ward and Bochner boarding their neighbors' yacht on the crucial night, and the rusty, moldering remains of military hardware that lurk in the underbrush. When contrasted with the chic mid-80s San Francisco in which the courtroom scenes take place, you definitely get the sense that the Rachel Ward character has come a long way. You don't see a lot of that kind of subtlety in a TV feature.

This is a story that probably should have been a Hollywood feature. Barring that, however, it's still an excellent film. Recommended.

I saw this movie at 5am on a Friday morning, on EDrama. It has a cool vibe that pulls you in. Basically a good version of a Lifetime movie. The guy who plays Buck does a good job of playing a real creep. Movie takes place in Hawaii, and the scenes where they are out in the boat are pretty creepy, thanks to some good sound effects and camera work. Richard Crenna is good in this, but of course he basically always plays the same character in everything. Watching this straight through as a movie is a little weird, because every 10 minutes or so there is a weird break in the continuity due to the fact that it was originally made for TV. Rachel Ward plays dumb in this one, and it isn't that believable that she would be with "Buck". I do like Buck's style though; a mix of creepy cheap bar guy and Matthew Mcconaughey (or is that the same thing?).

An able cast and good direction do a creditable job in this film based on famed attorney Vincent Bugliosi's non-fiction book, which describes both the crime and the trial (he represented the defendants). But more than anything else, it's the story itself that will keep your eyes glued to the screen for three hours. Yuppie couple sail to an isolated mid-Pacific island. Later, so does a hippie couple. After that, the hippie couple are arrested in Honolulu in possession of the yuppies' boat and a weak story. Investigation does not turn up the yuppies, their bodies, or the hippies' boat. Some time later, back at the island, a box washes onshore that contains the bones of the yuppy woman. The details are too numerous and mystifying to list here! The "plot" may seem to meander and include many digressions -- but that's because it's from real life! Even at three hours (made for TV, two instalments) the film can't include all the baffling elements. (You really should get the paperback!) If you stick with it and pay close attention, you'll find it not only entertainment, but also a challenge: What really happened? Who did it? This puzzle will haunt you, keep popping back into your mind, long after the movie ends. (Get the book!!)