Guilty Conscience

Arthur Jamison, Anthony Hopkins, a wealthy criminal defense attorney, faces a costly divorce from his wife, Louise Jamison. Arthur builds a sprawling mental catalog of murder plots, testing each scenario across imagined courts to spot flaws, loopholes, and airtight alibis. He spends much of the film consulting an officious imaginary version of himself to craft the ultimate scheme to rid himself of Louise.

Arthur runs every imagined homicide and ensuing trial through his mind, weighing cross-examination pressure, juror psychology, and the mechanics of how a crime could be portrayed or dismissed. The deeper he goes, the more he believes he can anticipate every complication and keep a perfect alibi out of reach.

Arthur’s mistress, Jackie Willis, Swoosie Kurtz, meets Louise in secret. The two women hatch a plan to kill Arthur, intending to stage his death as a suicide. They confront Arthur at gunpoint, and he remains unfazed, quickly pointing out the flaws in what they call their foolproof scheme.

Arthur reveals that he has been cheating on both of them with a third woman and was about to go out on a highly anticipated date with her, so suicide would not be his mindset. He had also been recording the entire confrontation, using the tape to blackmail Louise. Enraged by the implosion of her plan, she chases him with a gun. A brief struggle ends with Louise shot dead. But the appearance of an accidental death twists the case against Arthur, since the only evidence is Jackie’s word and his own word cannot easily prove innocence.

Arthur imagines himself in court, his imaginary self now serving as prosecutor, laying out how the case might unfold and what would need to be proven. The sequence returns to the idea that the entire scenario may be nothing more than a mental trial, another unrealized possibility.

Back at home, Arthur returns to refining the plan, only to again reveal that this is just another unrealized, purely imaginary scenario. Louise eventually arrives home, shoots him, and calls Jackie to report the deed. The film ends with Louise rearranging the living room to cover up evidence of the murder.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 14:27