Can a lawyer defend a client he believes is guilty of attempted murder?

Entertainment · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: The 1990 film Reversal of Fortune dramatizes the high-stakes legal battle surrounding socialite Sunny von Bülow’s mysterious coma. When Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz is hired to appeal Claus von Bülow’s conviction, he must navigate a web of withheld evidence, unreliable witnesses, and the chilling moral ambiguity of his client’s innocence.

In December 1980, heiress Sunny von Bülow fell into a persistent vegetative state following a diabetic shock, marking her second coma in two years. Her husband, Claus von Bülow, was subsequently charged with attempting to murder her via an insulin overdose. Prosecutors argued Claus stood to gain financially from her death and was motivated by an affair with actress Alexandra Isles. He was initially found guilty on two counts of attempted murder.

Claus appealed the verdict and retained Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor who initially suspected his client’s guilt. The defense team’s investigation uncovered significant procedural failures, including the prosecution's improper withholding of critical notes. Simultaneously, they gathered evidence suggesting Sunny’s own history of drug and alcohol use, as well as potential suicide attempts, which complicated the narrative of a clear-cut murder plot. A toxicology report on a needle found at the scene further undermined the state's case by showing no trace of insulin.

The film, directed by Barbet Schroeder and starring Jeremy Irons, captures the tension of this legal reversal. As Dershowitz’s team secured the withheld notes and identified inconsistencies in the state's evidence, the professor’s perspective shifted toward the possibility of Claus’s innocence. Ultimately, Claus was acquitted in a second trial. Despite the legal victory, the film underscores the moral distance between attorney and client, with Dershowitz famously telling Claus that while he had won the case, he was on his own regarding his moral culpability.

The production is noted for its visual commitment to Gilded Age aesthetics, using historic estates like The Breakers in Newport to ground the narrative. It received widespread critical acclaim, holding a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 93 on Metacritic. Jeremy Irons’s portrayal of Claus earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor, cementing the film’s status as both a compelling mystery and a sharp satire of the wealthy elite.

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