A Pair of Advocates for ‘The Advocate’

As attorneys--and animal lovers--we take issue with Peter Rainer’s less-than-enthusiastic review of “The Advocate,” a quirky medieval period piece about an altruistic young Parisian lawyer who finds that he has bitten off more medieval muck than he can chew when he takes a job as a defense lawyer in a French rural village during the Middle Ages (“When ‘The Advocate’ Goes to Trial in the Middle Ages,” Calendar, Aug. 24). (If you liked “The Name of the Rose” and “Apartment Zero,” you will love this film!)

Contrary to the review, “The Advocate” had much more to offer than simply the mystery surrounding the identity of the lawyer’s client. Indeed, like a fine wine, “The Advocate” has layers of complexity blended together for a most thoughtful and entertaining composition--a kind of a meeting of the minds of John Grisham, Scott Turow, Graham Greene, Umberto Eco and Federico Fellini, in an offbeat satirical tale featuring the re-creation of a number of unbelievably bizarre, but nonetheless historically accurate, courtroom trials.

The young defense lawyer, Richard Courtois (Colin Firth), finds himself quickly falling into a medieval morass and is forced to test his commitment to his profession when he is confronted with a client who, we’ll suffice it to say, needs to work on her manners! Courtois likewise struggles with some typical medieval social problems, including witchcraft, superstition and religious hypocrisy, as well as racism, sexism and anti-Semitism--issues certainly as pertinent today as they were 400 years ago. “The Advocate” gives a realistic portrayal of a legal system based on paranoia and superstition and is a provocative and thorough examination of complex legal and social issues.

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Rainer complains that “The Advocate” is “campy” and takes “itself seriously--but not quite seriously enough.” We think that Rainer may have taken himself too seriously and simply missed all the fun. Indeed, the comedic aspects of “The Advocate” prevent the film from being an overly dark and sinister depiction of medieval times.

And it’s not because we are lawyers and animal lovers. What’s not to love about a film that grapples with such a heady moral and legal issue as whether rats are competent to testify as witnesses at a murder trial? We think Rainer is just being a little pigheaded!