BEREFORD'S DOUBLE JEOPARDY

Double Jeopardy

An Analysis of Bruce Bereford's Double Jeopardy

Introduction to Film

Professor Kim Elliott-White

Double Jeopardy

Double Jeopardy (1999) is a thriller by Austrailian director Bruce Bereford, which stars Ashley Judd as Elizabeth "Libby" Parsons, a woman wrongly accused of murdering her husband, Bruce Greenwood as Nicholas "Nick" Parsons/Simon Ryder/Jonathan Devereaux, Libby's husband, and Tommy Lee Jones, as Travis Lehman, a former law professor who is Libby's parole officer and eventually helps her to reunite with her son, Matty, and clear her name. Bereford's previous directorial successes include Academy Award winning Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Black Robe (1991), and Tender Mercies (1984), his first U.S. feature, which earned him his first and only Academy Award Nomination for Best Director to date. Despite these early and criticial successes, Double Jeopardy (1999) was critically panned and was referred to as "not a successful thriller, but with some nice...
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