COURTROOM, THE
(director: Lee Sunday Evans; screenwriter: Arian Moayed; cinematographer: Daisy Zhou; editor: Cecilia Delgado; music: Daniel Kluger; cast: Michael Braun (Gregory Guckenburger), Marsha Stephanie Blake (Judge Zerbe), Linda Powell (Richard Hanus), BD Wong (cameo in the Third Act), Kristin Villanueva (Elizabeth Keathley), Michael Bryan French (Judge Kanne), Victoria Hope Chan (Schyler Keathley), Michael Chernus (John Keathley, Elizabeth’s husband), Hanna Cheek (Margaret O’Donnell), Kathleen Chalfant (Judge Easterbrook); Runtime: 87; MPAA Rating: NR; producers:Damon Owlia, Jonathan Olson; Topic/Tribeca Film Festival; 2022)
“An amazing true courtroom story on a Filipina immigrant.”
REVIEWED ON 6/20/2022 GRADE: B
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
An amazing true courtroom story on a Filipina immigrant, Elizabeth Keathley (Kristin Villanueva, who did the same part in the play), a young woman who married an American named John (Michael Chernus) and lived in Bloomington, Illinois. She risked deportation in a court trial in 2008 after mistakenly registering to vote while on a K3 visa. An obvious matter that should have been cleared-up before she went to trial if the American judicial system worked right.
The low-budget drama is adapted from a story that was originally staged as an off-Broadway play by director Lee Sunday Evans, who brings her play to the “big screen” in her film debut. It’s written by the actor Arian Moayed.
The incident happened in 2004 when Elizabeth, who does not speak a good English (her native language is Tagalog), was filling out a license form in the Illinois motor vehicle department and mistakenly checked a box declaring that she is an American citizen. The examiner does not question the error and instead gives her a voting card to vote in the election of her district congressman. After applying for a green card, the examiner catches the mistake and notifies the Department of Homeland Security. No one does the right thing of talking to her and clearing the mistake up, thereby Homeland Security (represented by Gregory Guckenburger (Michael Braun), takes her to court and acts to deport her back to the Philippines, where she would have to leave her husband, her child, and a stepdaughter.
The no-nonsense legal thriller was taken verbatim from the court transcripts. It’s a technically stunted film that never becomes cinema friendly as it remains theatrical as a reenactment movie that is meant to educate and not entertain. But it does its job as it recreates the trial that takes place in the courtroom of Judge Zerbe (Marsha Stephanie Blake), a trial which should make any reasonable person upset on how it victimized the innocent immigrant with such a harrowing experience.
At the trial, she gets good counsel from her indomitable lawyer Richard Hanus (Linda Powell, in a gender-swapped role), who has the film’s main role, as he fights for her against deportation and to get U.S. citizenship.
REVIEWED ON 6/20/2022 GRADE: B