Robert Downey Jr and Robert Duvall in The Judge

Slick Chicago lawyer Hank Palmer is set to pluck his latest white-collar client from the State of Illinois’s prosecutorial clutches when he receives a message that his mother has just passed away. Hank has no contact with his dad, and his mom is the one person in his family — in his entire hometown —with whom he had remained in touch for the last 20 years. She is the only one, her death the only event, that can draw him home.

What waits for him in idyllic Carlinville, however, is much more than a memorial service, and far from a warm welcome. Before he can make his escape, Hank is called back to defend his own estranged father, the town’s venerable judge of 42 years, who suddenly finds himself on the wrong side of the bench.

“No matter how old we are, within five minutes of walking back into our childhood home, we are exactly who we were when we left there,” says director and producer, David Dobkin. “We fall back into those routines; we’re subject to the same behaviour and communication patterns of our youth, the same unspoken misunderstandings and unresolved issues, however great or small, which wind up driving us for the rest of our lives.”

The primary relationship David Dobkin wanted to explore was one between a strong patriarchal father and the son who had left home years ago and had never returned to face all the skeletons in his boyhood closet. The story first occurred to Dobkin when, after experiencing a personal loss, he began to think about how adult children relate to their elderly parents in US culture. “I started envisioning these three brothers and their father, coming together after the mom passes away, and what that would be like”

PARENTING THE PARENT

Pairing acting heavyweights Robert Downey Jr and Robert Duvall for the first time, the film seeks to explore the role reversal we all face, whether through emotion or circumstance, of having to parent our ageing parents and come to terms with our own personal history.

Star and executive producer Downey says: “What I love about this story is the incredible sense of place, of going away from home and having to return to face all the things this guy had been avoiding for years, which all come flooding back at once. It’s told with a lot of twists and surprises and humour. To me, it really feels like a 21st century version of what I consider classic filmmaking.”

The primary relationship Dobkin wanted to explore was one between a strong patriarchal father and the son who had left home years ago and who, due to an ongoing, seemingly irreparable rift between them, had never returned to face all the skeletons in his boyhood closet.

Duvall, who plays the tough-as-nails judge, says he readily signed on because “it was a smart script, very well written with wonderful characters... definitely an actors’ film. On top of that, I felt the people involved would be great to work with.”

The story first occurred to Dobkin when, after experiencing a personal loss, he began to think about how adult children relate to their elderly parents in US culture. “For the most part, we Americans don’t live with our parents, so in a way we’re anesthetised from their ageing, both physically and emotionally. I started envisioning these three brothers and their father, coming together after the mom passes away, and what that would be like.”

“What I love about this story is the incredible sense of place, of going away from home and having to return to face all the things this guy had been avoiding for years, which all come flooding back at once. It’s told with a lot of twists and surprises and humour. To me, it really feels like a 21st century version of what I consider classic filmmaking”— Robert Downey Jr who plays Hank and is also executive producer

KNOW THE CRISIS, NOT FEEL IT

Dobkin remembers asking Downey early on, “‘Does your character know he’s in crisis, or does he just feel he’s in crisis?’ His answer was, ‘He knows it, but he doesn’t feel it’. Hank is aware, on an intellectual level, that he’s unable to have an emotional truth. He’s stuck at a dead end in his life even though he’s at the top of what he set out to achieve.”

In traditional American families, Hank would be heralded as the shining example, having left his small town upbringing for the wilds of the big city and made his own way with unparalleled success. Whether due to a case of ‘I’ll show him’ or ‘I’ll make him finally see me,’ Hank’s high marks in law school and his rise up the corporate ladder are typical behaviour of either a bad-kid-making good, a chip-off-the-old-block carving out his own path or, most likely, a mixture of both.

“Joseph Palmer is a man who represents the old world, the old guard,” Dobkin says. “He’s about honour; he believes that how a man walks through life has everything to do with where he ends up and how he is remembered. Hank, on the other hand, believes you do whatever you need to do to get to the top, and once you’re there and as long as it was legal, it’s okay, even if it was manipulative.”

Robert Duvall acknowledges, “The judge would rather go to prison than lose his honour. That complicates things for his sons, Glen, Hank and Dale, especially for Hank, who subconsciously thinks he’ll win his dad’s approval by winning the case.”

THAT’S JUST LIFE

Glen, the firstborn son, played in the film by Vincent D’Onofrio, was a baseball prodigy with a 90-mile-per-hour fastball and, to Hank’s recollection, his father’s clear favourite. And the judge holds the once-irresponsible Hank responsible for Glen’s inability to pursue his dream of the major leagues.

“I think people are going to be able to recognise the kind of real family drama that goes on every day,” says D’Onofrio. “Some of it is funny, some of it is heart wrenching — all of the stuff this kind of movie should be, because that’s just life.”

Jeremy Strong portrays Dale, a gentle presence among the stronger personalities of his father and brothers, and — via his ever-present Super 8 camera — the “witness” to the Palmers’ dysfunction, the eyes and ears that attend both the good and bad moments that make up any family.

Strong reveals that, “finding and committing to this character was daunting. There wasn’t a lot on the page that indicated who he was, how he should be, which is a feature of great writing — that you have to dig deeper to unearth what’s there.”

According to producer David Gambino, “Robert, Vincent and Jeremy decided they would spend time together and build up that bond you would have with each other as brothers, so when they hit the set, there would be that familiarity. And they did it. You really buy these guys as people who have been raised by this man and shared a collective experience.”

“The relationship between the three brothers and their father surpassed anything that was on the page,” Dobkin asserts. “The chemistry between all four of them was very special, very dynamic.”

When Hank arrives back in Carlinville for his mom’s funeral, he expects to find his father and brothers there, but what he doesn’t anticipate is running into his high school sweetheart, Samantha Powell.

Dobkin describes Sam as “that reminder of what could’ve been, that one who got away who, when we look back, makes us think: ‘A little more maturity, a different place and time, a couple of different decisions and maybe, just maybe….’”

Vera Farmiga, who plays Sam, was very touched by the script. “It told a very moving, brutally honest and emotional story with such intimate detail,” she says. “Quite honestly, I’ve never known a father and son who weren’t, consciously or unconsciously, trying to break some cycle of strife. This is just a beautiful story about forgiveness in which not only the father and sons but every character, on some level, is learning to forgive or to be forgiven.”       

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