Murder in the reeds

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Movie
German title Murder in the reeds
Original title (The) Plain Truth
Country of production USA , Canada
original language English
Publishing year 2004
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK o. A.
Rod
Director Paul Shapiro
script Matthew Tobacco
production Michael Mahoney
music Yves Laferrière
camera David Greene
cut Michael Pacek
occupation

Mord im Schilf is a US-American - Canadian drama directed by Paul Shapiro from 2004. The film is based on the novel The Only Truth (2000) by Jodi Picoult and was first broadcast in Germany on July 10, 2006 on ZDF .

action

The feisty attorney Ellie Harrison reluctantly takes over the criminal defense in the "hopeless" infanticide case of the young, unmarried Amish woman Katie Fitch. Katie is said to have stabbed her newborn child, but claims she passed out immediately after birth and didn't know anything about it.

Harrison tries to get Katie out of bail . She can only achieve this by introducing the ethical law of nonviolence, which the Amish unconditionally follow (“Amish do not kill people”) and by additionally agreeing to personally supervise Katie Fitch.

The lawyer then moves in with Fitch and is confronted with a way of life that is strange to her.

Ellie has Katie examined by her ex-boyfriend, the psychiatrist Cooper, because Katie talks to her dead sister and, despite her claim to always be truthful, gets deeper and deeper into lies and contradictions as the film progresses. Katie fears avoidance by her family and community for violating Amish principles. Despite religious prohibitions, she visited her “outcast” brother in town, secretly wore normal clothes, drank alcohol and had premarital sex with a friend whom the family knew nothing about.

In view of Katie's double life, Ellie first wants to plead that Katie is incapable of guilt because she suffers from a split personality due to the strong religious pressure associated with the stress at birth .

Katie rejects this and wants to tell the truth "with God's help". On the stand, she tells her story of her faint so credibly that the jury acquitted her of the charge of killing the newborn. However, they find her guilty of negligent manslaughter, as Katie had passed on the animal disease listeriosis to the baby by handling raw milk as a milkmaid .

When the lawyer wants to leave the Amish family, Katie's mother shows her the murder weapon and confesses that, contrary to the Christian law of non-violence, she stabbed the baby to save her daughter from the threat of avoidance.

Ellie takes home the experience that the Amish world is not an "ideal world" and reconciles with her (ex-) boyfriend, the psychiatrist Cooper, because she has learned more value through contact with the Amish to lay human relationships.

Reviews

On dvdtown.com, John J. Puccio criticized the numerous clichés contained in the film.

TV Today.de wrote: "Lauer Thriller".

TV Spielfilm wrote: "Lauer thriller in the Amish milieu based on the Jodie Picoult novel."

Critical about the film

This film deals with some clichés and contains factual errors, namely:

  1. The action is supposed to take place in Lancaster County, but the women's caps just don't match the alleged location, nor do the carriages of the type.
  2. The Amish are represented as farmers, which they are no longer at this percentage level.
  3. In the film the family is called "Fitch". But there is no such Amish name. This name does not exist in the fictitious settlement area "Lancaster County" or in other settlements.

Awards

The film won the Directors Guild of Canada Award in 2005 for sound editing and was nominated for this award in two other categories.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. dvdtown.com ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dvdtown.com
  2. programm.tvtoday.de