"I was really fascinated with the brother/sister relationship," says Tony Goldwyn '82 about the central characters in his new film Conviction. "This woman spent 18 1/2 years on an act of faith. I thought, what if she was wrong, what if he was guilty?" Goldwyn's fascination with the dynamics of Betty Anne Waters and her brother Kenny's struggle became the film Conviction .The film, starring Sam Rockwell and Hilary Swank as the aforementioned brother and sister, is Goldwyn's tale of Betty Anne Waters' quest to acquit her brother Kenny of murder charges that came with a life sentence in prison. The film immediately sets up the two as a loving pair of siblings, with flashbacks to their days as children interspersed with present-day scenes of the two with their respective families. Kenny is the more brash and rebellious of the two of them, getting into fights at bars, being disrespectful to police and basically doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants. It is exactly this quality that brings the wrath of policewoman Nancy Taylor upon him, who stops at nothing to charge Kenny with the murder in question. Betty Anne, meanwhile, is much more compassionate and down-to-earth, and her personal belief in her brother's innocence drives her in the long process of becoming an attorney to hopefully free her brother of the murder charges when no else would.

I had the chance to see Conviction Sept. 27 in the Wasserman Cinematheque, where a special screening arranged by Prof. Alice Kelikian (HIST) was followed by a question-and-answer session with Tony Goldwyn, Sam Rockwell and the real-life Betty Anne Waters. Goldwyn, meanwhile, agreed to do a phone interview with justArts, in which he revealed a number of interesting facts about the film and his process as a director overall.

Kenny's rather unlikable nature in the film is quite striking, with Rockwell managing to portray his emotive responses in such a way that the character's own true motivation is never quite clear. Though Kenny can be seen as dangerous, he still manages to be conveyed, at times, in a positive light, though the idea of his possible guilt is never far from the audience's mind. "It was very important to me that the audience think he might be guilty of the crime," acknowledges Goldwyn on the matter. "I had no interest in making him likable per se. There's a real duality to Kenny. He's a pretty self-destructive guy, and yet he's absolutely devoted to his sister. It was about showing the contrasts in the character. That's why casting Sam was so important to me. I needed an actor who could bring those contrasts and be, if not likable, lovable."

Swank, on the other hand, has the complicated task of portraying a woman desperate with the dual endeavor of attempting to free her brother while struggling to keep her own family intact. She had the added necessity of needing to depict a personal struggle that was mirrored in the actual life of Betty Anne Waters, who was on set throughout the film's shoot. "Oftentimes, you don't want the real people on set," remarks Goldwyn on this topic. "They can make people self-conscious or obsess on details. But Betty Anne really got what we were doing, and the actors fell in love with her. She was a great presence and a tremendous resource because she really understood what I was trying to accomplish. ... I think she felt very happy, as painful an experience as it was, that she felt we were telling the truth."

The film's emphasis, outside of its central brother/sister story, is on the corruption within the social justice system. Nancy Taylor's aggressive bid to put Kenny Waters behind bars is marked with interrogations and forced admissions of Kenny's guilt. Even when confronted with DNA evidence proclaiming Kenny's innocence, she still refuses to admit errors, citing the possibility that Kenny still could have been an accomplice. This, Goldwyn believes, is evidence of the court system's desire to put away people quickly and without remorse. "It troubles me greatly in our culture the way we like things to be black and white," he reflects. "We crave simple answers to complex questions, and this extends profoundly into our justice system. . People need to start thinking that when you put an innocent person behind bars, there is a guilty person who is free. The murderer in this case has never been found, and I feel lucky to have been have been able to dramatize a story like this, to show that there are a lot of people like Kenny Waters. Just because someone is in jail does not necessarily mean that they belong there."

Conviction is Goldwyn's fourth directorial film to date. As many know, he started his Hollywood career as an actor, appearing in such notable films as Ghost and The Last Samurai and voicing the title character in Disney's Tarzan. Making the transition from actor to director is an interesting challenge, and there are many unique insights that can lend themselves to directing. "You have a natural common language with actors," he notes. "The way I approached directing on my first film, I really had no technical knowledge of directing, but I had been an actor for 10 years, so I thought, 'What's my dream director if I'm an actor?' It has to do with creating an environment on set where you feel very free and relaxed and also being extremely collaborative."

As Brandeis alumnus Goldwyn's successful career represents a cornerstone of what any aspiring actor/director at Brandeis can hope to strive for. On the subject on what it takes to follow the path to Hollywood, Tony remarks that it's not just about trying to break into the business, but about the individual's creativeness and steadfast determination to move forward. "You have to be tremendously self driven. A lot of people have this illusion that if they get the right agent, or if they get their first film made, doors are gonna open. That may happen, but you constantly have to be entrepreneurial, and make it happen for yourself. That's how you evolve as an artist."

Conviction represents the culmination of a unique vision that set out to faithfully represent the tragic yet inspirational tale of a brother and sister and their battle against a corrupt justice system. The result is an eye-opener of a film that truly captures the broad ineffectiveness of our system and illustrates the steps we need to take to fix it. If a small-town girl with nothing to help her but the passion in her heart can rise up against all odds and bring freedom to an innocent man, then perhaps there is still hope for social justice.

-Bryan Flatt contributed reporting.