Margulies has 'Law' on her side
Monday, March 10th 2008, 4:00 AM
Julianna Margulies plays a lawyer who fights for her clients and with her hubby on 'Canterbury's Law.'
CANTERBURY'S LAW. Monday at 8 p.m., Ch. 5
The last lawyer to show up on television with a mission to help unarmed victims of the system, Eli Stone - just a couple of weeks ago on ABC - was inspired to his noble cause by the image of George Michael singing "Faith."
Elizabeth Canterbury's journey has a much darker impetus: Her young son disappeared, setting off a hand grenade in the middle of her life.
"Canterbury's Law," which kicks off tonight on Fox, can be a tough watch. But with a haunted Julianna Margulies as Elizabeth Canterbury, it's a good one.
Margulies looks older and more drawn than her best-known character, Carol Hathaway, from "ER." Ordinarily, that's not what an actress would want to hear, but it's essential for this role, which requires her to play a character who has had years drained out of her life by a nightmare from Dante - not knowing where, when or if she will see her son again.
There's no indication she was a radically different kind of lawyer before her son's disappearance. But that trauma ramped up the ferocity with which she fights, because the office and the courtroom became her refuge.
She definitely needs one. She fires people for no apparent reason. She's fighting with the husband she loves and sleeping with a casual friend because she's looking for "something that keeps me from feeling numb."
She insults the lawyers who work for her.
She drinks.
Yet Margulies is sufficiently skilled that she finds the parts of Elizabeth Canterbury we can like, and her internal struggle is what makes this more than just the latest lawyer show.
The lawyer part, in fact, is fairly routine. In tonight's case, a mentally troubled youth is accused of brutally murdering the son of a wealthy, influential man and Canterbury may be the only person who believes that he didn't do it and has a hunch who really did.
She redirects the seemingly inexorable wheels of justice in ways that are not always ethical and in some nicely subtle ways reflect her own desperation.
The supporting cast seems strong, though it's not clear yet who else will become important.
Aidan Quinn plays her husband, a good man with not enough answers, and her law partner, Russell Krauss, is played by Ben Shenkman, whose awkward youth offers a stark contrast to Canterbury's hardened shell.
It's probably worth mentioning that Jim Serpico and Denis Leary, who created "Rescue Me," are executive producers of "Canterbury's Law." At the very least, it's probably safe to say neither Elizabeth Canterbury nor her life are likely to neatly come back together anytime soon
