I really wanted to like Conviction, because it is about such a great, true story of love and perseverance, but the sad reality is that it is poorly written and structured, and just plain disappointing. Basically, it’s a TV movie – a mediocre one.

They totally skip over the one interesting plot-line: her journey from no high school degree to passing the Bar. We are given no details about how she got through this process or what it was like for her. All they do is show her handing in a paper late, as if to say “There! She struggled. Get it?” They don’t even try to explain huge events in her life, like when or why her marriage falls apart, or why her kids first feel unloved and want to live with their dad, and then are suddenly back with her as her biggest fans. Instead of all this juicy and interesting stuff, the film is completely focused on two other, decidedly less compelling things: 1) showing her childhood relationship with her brother, and 2) telling the story of trying to overturn her brother’s conviction.

The relationship with her brother should have been done in one fabulously written scene of dialog between Hillary Swank and Minni Driver, where she described how close they were. That’s all it needed and it would have been way more dramatically effective than all the boring and overly-long flashbacks featuring those two ugly children and a very distracting and weird performance by Karen Young. It also would have freed up on-screen time to get into her own personal journey to become a lawyer.

The problem with the story of overturning her brother’s conviction is that it simply is not very interesting. The only element of tension in the whole story is “will they find the box of evidence 16 years later?” But Tony Goldwyn plays that angle up so heavy-handedly that you know with certainty they will eventually find the box of evidence, which in turn will permit the DNA exoneration. Besides that one story element, there is nothing much to tell, except how long everything took, which is not interesting.

As a result the film falls totally flat, which prompted Tony Goldwyn to drown the audience in soft piano music, just to constantly remind everyone that this stuff is “tender” and “heart-rending,” damn it!

Be aware that they did a good job in the preview of hiding the film’s many shortcomings. They hide the weird and distracting order in which Tony Goldwyn chose to tell the story, and as a result the preview has more dramatic tension than the film. They edit the scenes to make it look like the film is largely about her personal journey of growth (again, it is not.) They hide Juliette Lewis’ frightening and repulsive teeth, which are in my book enough of a reason to skip the film entirely. They include a scene deleted from the movie where Peter Gallagher says to his assistant “This woman put herself through law school just to save her brother?!” and the assistant replies “He’s her only client.” It is great and well-delivered exchange that would have provided a little of the kind of dialog texture this film so desperately needed, so of course they decide to cut it! And the film’s best line comes across much better in the preview: when Minni Driver tells Hillary Swank “We’re gonna be friends, because we’re the only two people in class that have gone through puberty.” It’s a great line for kicking off the key relationship (or what should have been the key relationship) of the movie. But for some crazy reason, Goldwyn chose to make this exchange the first scene of the film, killing all of its impact in starting that relationship, and turning it into a throwaway line (the preview implicitly puts the line in the middle of her journey, where it belongs.) Once again, we are confronted with a classic example of a preview displaying superior dramatic craftsmanship than the movie it’s advertising.

As far as the acting, I will say that I am really am starting to like Hillary Swank and I have always liked Minni Driver, and they both do a good job, at least in the context of what they are working with. The dude playing Kenny was just okay, and the all kids were pretty poor. The incredible Melissa Leo gets a pass, because she was given nothing of substance to do in this film.

Conviction: I can’t really recommend it, unless you are in the mood to pay $13 to watch the “Sunday night movie of the week.”