Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 1-August-10
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Absence of Malice (1981)

The phrase "absence of malice" is used to explain a person's innocence when she or he does something harmful without meaning to cause harm, as in "Mrs. Henderson, I'm sorry that Billy put the bird in your mailbox, but he didn't know it would die. He was just trying to figure out how air mail works." In Sydney Pollack's film Absence of Malice the phrase applies to the press' intention of rooting out people's lives. Using a journalist as the central character, the movie explores the grey area between reporting news responsibly and broadcasting any theory or secret because you think you can't be blamed for it.

Megan Carter (Sally Field) works for a newspaper in Miami. Like most movie reporters, she is single and devoted to her job, although she does have an active social life. Through a suitor in the police department she learns that a federal prosecutor (Bob Balaban), with the blessing of the District Attorney (Don Hood), has taken a new tack in the three-year-old investigation of a union organizer's disappearance. The prosecutor has decided to tail, question, and generally harass the scion of a prominent crime family. His target, Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman), seems like an upstanding business owner, but who knows what whispers he might have overheard or what leads he might be pressed to suggest? Carter runs with the prosecutor's ploy and writes an article linking Gallagher to the investigation.

The distribution of her words is depicted by that icon of innocence, the suburban paper boy pedaling down a tree-lined street. Yet the effect of her work is anything but benign. Michael Gallagher is understandably peeved at having his phones tapped and his name linked to a presumed murder, and his anger grows when his union employees quit and his clients cut him loose. Meanwhile, Carter approaches him for a statement to round out her story, and his initial antagonism yields to mutual attraction. As their relationship grows so does Carter's involvement in the investigation, which precipitates a tragedy. This, along with Gallagher's influence, causes her to question where her obligation to journalism ends and her obligation to individuals begins.

Absence of Malice is an engrossing, thought-provoking film whose only real flaw is an exaggeration of Gallagher's character as a noble man unjustly accused. This derives partly from Newman's gorgeousness. (In a way beautiful actors are as limited as homely ones, in that beauties fail to fit many roles while homely actors aren't offered many roles in the first place.) The ending portrays Gallagher as a sort of modern folk hero whose level-headed brilliance ties up everything in a bow, which also strains credulity. Still, one cannot knock the message that he delivers to Carter and the audience. Even when seeking to proclaim the truth, an adult is not exempt from the consequences of her actions.

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