Conviction (2010)

Betty Anne Waters (Bailee Madison as a young child, Hilary Swank as an adult) is a good little sister. She literally gives up her life, hopes and dreams to become a lawyer with the sole purpose of freeing her brother (Sam Waterston) who is spending his life in prison after being convicted of murder.
Convicted of murdering Katharina Brow, an older woman whose house they broke into as a child, the evidence against him is mostly circumstantial, with some of his ex-girlfriends saying that he confessed to them, a flimsy alibi and blood evidence that is the same type as his, but this is 1983, after all.
Betty's marriage, to a man who doesn't think that her brother is innocent. She had a hard childhood, with eight different foster homes and never even finishing high school. Though it is never said what he does for a living, she did marry up. Needless to say, they get divorced and she shuffles through law school, where she deals with difficult college professors where she can't even turn in a paper a minute late.
She does make a friend, Abra Rice (Minnie Driver) though she tries to put Abra off, but it doesn't work.
However, Betty becoming a lawyer is only one hurdle. They need to find evidence that will prove Kenny's innocence, and it isn't easy. It took Betty sixteen years to become a lawyer and in accordance with Massachusetts state law, all the evidence, physical and otherwise was destroyed after ten years, along with any hope of freeing him. But Betty and Abra do not give up. It takes her borrowing some of Abra's clothes and going to the courthouse in person before the evidence is miraculously unearthed.
Still, there is more. The new district attorney doesn't want to admit that a mistake was made, so Abra, Betty and a lawyer who takes up lost causes, Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher), go to the witnesses and find out that Nancy Taylor (Melissa Leo) who was later found to be corrupt, coerced the witnesses into lying on the stand, determined to get Kenny in prison. However, Roseanna (Juliette Lewis) refuses to sign the affadavit, not wanting to be convicted of perjury. I couldn't believe she knew that much, what with being an alcoholic. But Kenny's other ex-girlfriend and mother of his child, Brenda (Clea DuVall) does and signs the papers at the request of her daughter.
Finally, after eighteen years in jail, Kenny is freed. He is released, finally sees his daughter, who is, thankfully, happy to see him, though she grew up her whole life believing him to be a murderer. Kenny cannot thank his sister enough.
However, once Kenny is out, Betty doesn't know what to do with her law degree. She continues bartending and works part-time getting innocents out of prison. The police of Ayer were found guilty and they settled but Nancy would never get any jail time because of immunity.
All-in-all, this was a good film, though the timeline was a little murky in parts, but the story was good. A bit more background, on the crime that Kenny actually did commit would have been good. He did truly have a record.
The performances are also great, everyone is excellent, though Betty and Abra did lack some personality. It is a good story on how devoted siblings can be to each other. Grade: A-