Nuts

Nuts is a 1987 American drama film directed by Martin Ritt, starring Barbra Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss. The screenplay by Tom Topor, Darryl Ponicsan and Alvin Sargent is based on Topor's 1979 play of the same title. It was both Karl Malden and Robert Webber's final feature film, and also included Leslie Nielsen's last non-comedic role. Plot When call girl Claudia Draper kills client Allen Green in self-defense, her mother Rose and stepfather Arthur Kirk attempt to have her declared mentally incompetent by Dr. Herbert Morrison in order to avoid a public scandal. Claudia knows that if her parents succeed, she will be remanded to a mental institution indefinitely, so she is determined to prove she is sane enough to stand trial. The attorney her parents hire to defend her quits after Claudia assaults him in the courtroom. The judge appoints public defender Aaron Levinsky to handle her case, as he happens to be in the courtroom. Although he is overbooked, he refuses to engage with the other lawyers without speaking to the defendant personally. Claudia resists him and is openly hostile until she finally accepts that he is on her side. Levinsky begins to probe her background to determine how the child of supposedly model upper middle class parents could find herself in this situation, and with each piece of her past he uncovers, he receives additional, disturbing insight into what brought Claudia to this crossroads in her life.