Film Review - NT Live: Prima Facie

Images courtesy of Sharmill Films.

Prima Facie follows the story of Tessa, a criminal defense lawyer who is sexually assaulted in her workplace. This one-woman play was performed by Jodie Comer, whose depth and character portrayal snags the audience’s attention from start to finish. Prima Facie felt relevant and reflective of real-world experiences without coming across as a lecture. The sweeping, epic quality of the writing was perfectly balanced with Comer’s wit and costume designer Miriam Buether’s impactful choices. The metaphorical undressing and redressing of Tessa’s character was matched by changes to her outfit, visually signposting the collapse of her old belief system and the emergence of her new values. 

Comer’s mercurial performance knitted every character into a single tragic thread of wrongdoing, circling around Tessa’s identity as a lawyer and the moment her worldview shifts forever. The sheer stamina it takes to perform onstage without the fallback of an ensemble or supporting cast fits the storyline perfectly; Tessa’s willingness to share her story is an exhausting ordeal that puts her inner life on display. Prima Facie illustrated how a courtroom strips a witness of their humanity in painful detail. The understated, solitary nature of Comer’s performance felt cleanly articulated in a way that films often lack; the format allowed for no distractions from the depth of Tessa’s suffering. 

Despite its subject matter, Prima Facie never resorted to cynicism. The play instead focused on the ‘corrosive wound’ of a violation such as sexual assault without falling prey to the unnecessary derailment of a perpetrator’s perspective. There were no ‘both sides’ arguments, no devil’s advocates and no simplistic explanations to be found in the narrative. Despite Tessa’s hubris, writer Suzie Miller’s cross-examination of the character never led the audience to feel satisfaction for her role reversal from lawyer to witness. Prima Facie is a play that refuses to be taken at face value.

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NT Live: Prima Facie is screening for an encore season in select cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.