Hutchinson-Presumed Innocent

Unlike in The Fugitive, the audience is uncertain of Harrison Ford’s guilt until the very end. Perhaps the title of the film is Presumed Innocent because hey, it’s Harrison Ford and you should always assume that he’s the good guy. However, the title of the film does not actually give you an indication of whether he’s actually guilty or innocent of the murder of Carolyn Polhemus, only that he is “presumed innocent,” which, really, he isn’t, because the whole movie revolves around his former “friends” trying to prove his guilt. So, the answer to this question of “is he or isn’t he guilty?” finally comes at the end of the movie when he finds the bloody hammer used to kill Carolyn in his tool chest. Uh oh. Was it really him the whole time? Did he fool everyone, even the audience? It certainly looks that way as he washes off the blood, but nope, his wife comes down and says “I did it. I fooled them.” The look on Rusty Sabich’s face says it all. Though his wife was referring to the interview from which she had just come, Rusty takes it as a confession to Carolyn’s murder.

As soon as Barbara Sabich realizes what Rusty is holding in his hand, she turns around and walks out of the cellar towards the kitchen. She calmly sits at the kitchen table, and what follows is an exchange so quiet and calm, but so filled with tension, that the audience isn’t sure if crazy Barbara is going to kill Rusty now, or Rusty turn in Barbara, or nothing at all. As she explains in excruciating detail the thought and care she took in planning and killing Carolyn, the scene flashes to Rusty a few times, his face completely in disbelief. However, as the scene progresses, his face changes from disbelief to sadness, to guilt, because Rusty Sabich was not completely innocent. His carnal relations with Carolyn led to his wife going completely crazy and turning into a homicidal nut. And Rusty, being the stand-up, by the book guy that he is, has felt guilty about his relations, even more so because he wasn't completely over them. He knows he turned his back on his marriage. The guilt is present in his eyes and his tears. Barbara ends her recollection by claimed that she "saved" them. Rusty kind of scoffs in disbelief as he mouths "saved" to himself. He can't even get the word to come out vocally. Saved. She believed she was saving their marriage, implying it was dying, dead, all because of what he did with Carolyn. He may not have physically killed Carolyn Polhemus, but he was still guilty of the events that led to her death.