Prima Facie: Cynthia Erivo and the Cinematic Deconstruction of Justice at the Toronto International Film Festival
There is no easy way to prepare for a project like Prima Facie, a film that demands an almost total surrender of the performer’s psyche to the rigors of trauma and the cold mechanics of the British legal system. For Cynthia Erivo, a two-time Oscar nominee and Tony winner, the transition to this role followed a grueling period of back-to-back production on the high-fantasy spectacles of the Wicked films. Moving from the stylized, green-hued world of Oz to the stark, fluorescent-lit reality of a modern-day London courtroom required more than just a change in wardrobe; it required a complete recalibration of her emotional architecture.
The film, which makes its highly anticipated debut at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), serves as a cinematic adaptation of Suzie Miller’s Olivier-winning play. While the stage production relied on the singular, powerhouse performance of Jodie Comer, director Susanna White’s film adaptation expands the scope of the narrative. It moves beyond the monologue-driven constraints of the theater, inviting the audience into the protagonist’s working-class origins, her domestic life, and the stifling, patriarchal atmosphere of the criminal justice system.
A Departure from the Stage: The Evolution of a Narrative
The transition from a one-woman play to a feature film is fraught with structural challenges. In the original stage production, the audience was trapped within the subjective experience of Tessa, a barrister who spends her days defending men accused of sexual assault, only to find herself on the opposite side of the bench when she is violated by her boyfriend, Julian (played by Daniel Ings).
Director Susanna White, returning to feature filmmaking for the first time in a decade, sought to translate the play’s internal tension into a visual language. Drawing inspiration from the psychological intensity of films like Black Swan, White aimed to replace the stage monologue with deliberate lensing and spatial storytelling. By introducing key supporting characters—such as Tessa’s mother, played by Noma Dumezweni, and her brother, played by Toheeb Jimoh—the film grounds the abstract legal concepts in tangible human relationships.
"The play is a monologue, and Suzie and I had to go on a big journey together where we turned it into something truly cinematic," White explains. "I was thinking: How can I replace the monologue with imagery and lensing and a way of shooting that captures the intensity of her experience?"
The Anatomy of a Performance
For Erivo, the challenge was twofold: maintaining the technical precision of a high-flying barrister while portraying a woman whose sense of self is systematically dismantled. To manage the psychological toll of the material, Erivo employed a rigorous support system, flanking herself with an intimacy coordinator and a professional therapist.
"I needed to go as far as I could, and I needed to, to tell the story as fully as I possibly could," Erivo notes. The role required her to be "uninhibited" while navigating the delicate boundaries of on-screen vulnerability. Working with intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot, Erivo meticulously choreographed the scenes of assault, focusing on the gradations of trauma—how to depict the subtle onset of a violation and the subsequent physiological response.
The filming process involved extended takes that sometimes stretched to thirty minutes, particularly during the grueling cross-examination sequences in the film’s final act. These scenes were designed to mirror the very tactics Tessa had perfected throughout her career, turning her own professional weapon—the ruthless deconstruction of a witness’s memory—against her.
Contextualizing the Legal Landscape
The film’s focus on the distinction between "the law" and "justice" is central to its thesis. To achieve an authentic representation of the British judicial system, the production utilized the actual Old Bailey in London, supplementing this with a meticulously constructed replica. Director Susanna White spent hundreds of hours observing real-life court proceedings to ensure that the procedural elements were not merely background noise, but an active antagonist in Tessa’s journey.
By casting real-life professionals, including doctors from rape-crisis centers and active law enforcement officers, the film avoids the hyper-dramatized tropes common in legal thrillers. The visual language of the film—dominated by the imposing architecture of the Old Bailey and the historic portraits of white, male judges—serves as a constant reminder of the systemic obstacles facing a woman of color in the legal profession.
"Its overwhelming majesty shows you what the law really is," says playwright Suzie Miller. "You don’t think of the law as belonging to the people; you think of it as this rule that was there before time. Everywhere you go, you are surrounded by these symbols of authority that are designed to intimidate."
Broader Societal Implications and Distribution
The arrival of Prima Facie at TIFF coincides with a global conversation regarding the erosion of legal protections for victims of sexual assault. As the film seeks a U.S. distributor, its creators are acutely aware of the shifting political and legal landscape in North America. Suzie Miller emphasizes that the devastation of women’s rights in the United States makes the film’s interrogation of the justice system particularly timely.
From a data perspective, the film enters a market where legal dramas remain a staple, yet few manage to bridge the gap between procedural accuracy and the visceral reality of trauma. The film’s success in the UK—where Sony Pictures has already secured international distribution rights—suggests a strong appetite for stories that challenge the traditional "victim" narrative. Unlike films that focus purely on the aftermath of a crime, Prima Facie examines the arrogance of the system itself, highlighting the irony of a woman who helped build that system being discarded by it.
The Professional and the Personal: A Retrospective
Erivo’s performance is marked by a refusal to portray Tessa as a passive victim. Instead, the film presents a nuanced look at a woman who is "high-flying" and "doing everything right," only to realize that the structural protections she believed in do not extend to her.
"We rarely see these stories of women who work, who are high-flying in their business, and then it happens right in front of them," Erivo says. "They don’t realize it’s right there."
The filming schedule, which proved to be the most intense of White’s career, had a palpable effect on the cast and crew. The scenes involving the courtroom testimony were particularly taxing, leaving Erivo to navigate the line between the character’s emotional exhaustion and her own physical state. There were moments of genuine distress during production, where the boundaries between the script and the reality of the performance blurred.
Looking Ahead
As Prima Facie prepares for its festival run, the focus remains on whether it can find a distributor capable of capturing the gravity of its message. The film stands as a testament to the power of collaboration between a playwright, a director, and a lead actor committed to a shared vision of truth. By grounding the story in the cold, hard reality of the Old Bailey and the internal, often silenced thoughts of a woman navigating a hostile environment, Prima Facie offers more than a legal drama; it offers a critique of the very foundations of the judicial process.
The film is not merely an adaptation of a successful play; it is an expansion of a discourse that has been gaining momentum for years. By bringing the "interior life" of a survivor to the forefront of the cinematic experience, White and Erivo have created a project that forces the audience to look, not away, but directly into the mechanisms of a system that often fails the people it is meant to protect. As the credits roll, the question remains: Can the law ever truly be synonymous with justice, or is the distance between them an inherent feature of the institutions we have built?
For Cynthia Erivo, the project represents a return to the "ground" after the elevated, fantastic world of her recent work. It is a grounding that is painful, necessary, and ultimately, a defining moment in her career as she continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in contemporary dramatic performance. As the TIFF audience processes the film, the conversation it ignites may prove as significant as the performance itself.
