Death Row

A powerful performance by Connie Nielsen, well supported by Aidan Quinn and Kelly Preston. The plot holes don't really matter here, it's the psyche of Charlotte Cory, as revealed by Nielson, that draws one through this film. Like Quinn's character Frank, one needs to learn why this beautiful person will passively accept execution by the state rather than defend her innocence. Self-condemned, because she miserably failed her sister Stella years before, Charlotte seems to believe she can atone for her sins in a twisted kind of sacrifice.

Neilsen reveals with her face and eyes the inner beauty of her character, the sadness on learning the (false?) circumstances of her father's death, the meaningfulness of her relationship with Frank, the love of her sister, the hope of a new life.

Aidan Quinn provides a solid, believable Frank, the shyster turning hero, resonating with Nielsen throughout.

The overwhelming impression of this film is its realism, in character portrayal, settings, musical score, it seems authentic, even when viewed through the lens of a security camera. In contrast, the fantasy sequences are whimsical and far out.

The solution of the mystery is satisfying, leading to a good ending.

I'm just writing to alert and remind everybody what really can be done with a "low budget" and independent movie like I think this one is.

I love this movie, it's story, the characters, the performances of the actors. It's all great.

It has a fantastic ending and I recommend everyone to see this movie.

I really think that this type of picture should have more support for being done. It's the "simple" stories like this one that demonstrate the true beauty of the cinema and not the blockbusters that the main industry continues to support.

I'm not saying that those shouldn't be done, because their fun.

I just think that sometimes and more often, they should support the so called low budget movies so that great, fantastic, human, and simple stories like what this movie represents could come out and be seen by all the people.

The fact is that with the low advertisement that is made to this type of movies, at least in my country (I presume that in the States it shouldn't be much more), only the true cinema "buffs" get the chance to find out about them and see them, and not the common person, as it should be from the start.

If you really love cinema, don't forget to see this movie, because it's one of those few movies that ends and makes you keep remind about them, the plot, the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the characters, and everything else for a long time.

it's a movie that brings out the human nature of the man,which is trying hardly to rile on real fact for the immersion of the truth in order to triumph over the possible bad part coexisting in everyone of us ,part which it's revealed into the very start of the movie.during the whole duration of the movie,the watcher comes to serious and powerful feelings regarding the human condition among the others which just look like some little pure things in comparison with the inmate Charlotte and the man who does almost everything to apply for her's "inguiltyness" in which he doesn't believe in 100% . the final is on the same scale with the movie,being an answer to the whole movie,revealing the house of the sister's laying calmly in the lazy landscape of the sunset,revealing the house which was "put into fire" by those who believed that she was guilty.the final scene reveals the humanity of the whole movie and it gives the movie a possible continuation ,beeing placed in the zone of a flaming relationship between the main two characters of these miniatured masterpiece.

Listed on IMDb under the primary title of Return to Sender (2004) by pretty much unknown to me Danish director, Bille August (except for The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones), is about a woman on death row who is going to let herself be executed in order to protect some one else. Excellent performances by Danish stunner, Connie Nielson (the reason I rented the movie) who never looked better than here in understated prison makeup, and Aidan Quinn (as a letters from death row inmates bounty hunter) in a tight script that starts off like it's going to be an evils of capital punishment vehicle, but turns into something else, which I can only call the value of truth without giving too much away.

It was only released in the US on DVD last November, but set here and filmed here and in Denmark. There aren't any external reviews in English, and only one review on IMDb that panned it. I'd have gone to see this in the theater. 7+/10.

Charlotte Cory (Connie Nielsen) is on death row for the kidnapping and murder of a child - but did she do it? Aidan Quinn plays an ex-defense lawyer who makes money selling the last letters of condemned prisoners to the highest bidder (apparently, such letters fetch tens of thousands of dollars). Because Cory's case is so rare, he sees the chance to make half a million dollars on her last letter. He pretends to be a friend of her father's in order to get close to her, but he ends up becoming emotionally engaged in her situation, and falling in love with her.

Return To Sender is a low-key character drama, extremely well-acted, realistic, touching and just generally well-rounded. I was absorbed by it throughout, and can't think of a single thing wrong with it. It keeps the suspense going right until the satisfying end. A great achievement by everyone involved.