The Pelican Brief
Short description
A law student, Darby Shaw, writes a legal brief proposing a motive behind the killing of two US Supreme Court justices. When the document reaches her professor and lover, Thomas Callahan, it is passed on to a contact in the FBI. Soon afterward Callahan is killed in a car bombing, and Darby survives a similar attempt on her life. Realising that her theory has struck at something powerful, she goes into hiding and turns to Gray Grantham, a reporter at the Washington Herald investigating the same deaths, and the two work together to expose the conspiracy behind the killings.
The Pelican Brief was released in 1993 and runs 141 minutes. It was directed by Alan J. Pakula, who also wrote the screenplay and produced alongside Pieter Jan Brugge. The film sits late in Pakula's career, after such earlier titles as Klute, The Parallax View, All the President's Men, Sophie's Choice and Presumed Innocent, and before The Devil's Own. Julia Roberts plays Darby Shaw, Denzel Washington plays Gray Grantham, and Sam Shepard plays Thomas Callahan, with John Heard, Tony Goldwyn and James B. Sikking in supporting roles.
Produced by Warner Bros. Pictures on a budget of about 45 million USD, the film took roughly 195 million USD worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from around 103,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.6 out of 10 from roughly 1,800 votes. A critics' rating of 5.8 out of 10 from 52 reviews is somewhat lower than those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- John Grisham wrote the character of Darby Shaw with actress Julia Roberts in mind for the role in a future adaptation. Roberts read the book and agreed to play Darby without even reading the script.
- The scenes in the Georgetown University Law School library were indeed filmed in this library – in the main reading room on the 4th floor. Other episodes on the university grounds were also filmed in authentic settings. University security personnel can be seen in the background as extras in these scenes.
- In the 1992 novel by John Grisham, which served as the literary source, the characters played by Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington become lovers. Roberts did not object to this plot twist, but Washington did, believing that an interracial relationship should not be shown on screen. A couple of years later, during filming of Brett Leonard's sci-fi action film 'Virtuosity' (1995), Washington again demanded the removal of a romantic subplot between his character and Kelly Lynch’s character, for the same reason.
- The rights to adapt the novel were acquired even before it was fully written. At one point, John Grisham published an excerpt from the novel he was working on, and soon after signed an agreement to transfer the adaptation rights.
- To prepare for her role, Julia Roberts took classes at the Tulane University School of Law and even attended a couple of seminars. Some students even appeared in the footage during the filming of scenes in the university classrooms.
- In preparation for filming, Denzel Washington closely communicated with editors and journalists from The Washington Post.
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