“Travis’ professional and personal lives are both pretty much a failure,” says Jones. “He’s a former law professor who has fallen on somewhat hard times and is reduced to being a parole officer. He’s cynical, probably jaded, and really just wants no complications in his life at all. And, of course, Ashley’s character proceeds to complicate his life.”

For, just as Judd’s character is transformed from wronged wife to vengeful mother, Jones’ character changes, too. From the tough, no-nonsense parole officer who, in an early scene, sends a woman back to prison for a single parole violation, he becomes a wry but tender-hearted back-up man for Libby in her final confrontation with Nick, whom she tracks down living a new life in New Orleans.

Libby on the road with Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones)

Double Jeopardy went into production last July in Vancouver, British Columbia (for the summer scenes of Libby’s idyllic life-before-the-fall), before moving south via San Francisco and wrapping in a very wet New Orleans a couple of months later. “We start out in a place that’s mostly natural colours - greens and browns,” says production designer Howard Cummings, “then move to New Orleans, which is all about neon-coloured lights.

“When Libby makes a decision to go on the run, I added all these red neon lights outside the window while she’s thinking that she’s going to cross the line and actually break the law. After that, the movie gets heavily layered with colours.”

Bruce Greenwood as Nick.

Not that Beresford and his team ever lose sight of the thriller side of Double Jeopardy. The scene on the ferry when Travis’ car plunges into the water could well become an anthology piece, just like Harrison Ford’s leap from the storm pipe in The Fugitive. And, in an age when car stunts are ten a penny, Libby’s escape from Travis in a quiet Colorado town still has the power to grab the attention.

But it is the human core that really makes the movie work: not just the idea of being able to kill your spouse, but of the emotional obsession that drives Libby and draws Travis along in her wake.

Director Bruce Beresford.

“Double Jeopardy is both an entertaining thriller and an interesting study of a woman’s obsessive love for her son, which I found very moving,” concludes Beresford. “This is a classic story of someone who’s been wronged, but I think if she hadn’t lost her son, the obsession wouldn’t be there.” And nor would the audience.