Clemen­cy

This is the unflinch­ing third fea­ture by Chi­nonye Chuk­wu which fol­lows death row prison war­den Berna­dine Williams (Alfre Woodard) through a moral cri­sis in the run up to her thir­teenth exe­cu­tion – of con­vict­ed cop killer Antho­ny Woods (Ald­is Hodge).

The sto­ry begins with Bernadine’s twelfth exe­cu­tion – of a Mr Jimenez. The cam­era remains still and the block­ing of actors pro­duces a painter­ly effect as we watch the capa­ble war­den pre­pare a white sheet over the bot­tom half of the prisoner’s body and place a micro­phone over his head, mov­ing it away before he fin­ish­es the Lord’s Prayer. The exe­cu­tion threat­ens to go awry when the syringe begins to leak, yet the fren­zy in this moment is eerie and con­trolled. This atmos­phere of dread and poten­tial dis­as­ter remains in place for the film’s runtime.

Due to the mishap, Berna­dine is now under the micro­scope of the unseen Gov­er­nor, as her focus shifts to Antho­ny and the ques­tion of whether or not he will be grant­ed clemen­cy. He is a con­vict­ed cop killer, has spent the past 15 years on death row despite con­tra­dic­to­ry evi­dence and, admit­ted­ly, com­pro­mised wit­ness­es. Berna­dine knows this, yet remains sto­ic in the face of protests out­side her office every day. She defers to the demands of her job when chal­lenged by Anthony’s lawyer, Mar­ty Lumet­ta (Richard Schiff).

Through­out we see the ways in which Bernadine’s job neg­a­tive­ly impacts her life, her trou­ble sleep­ing, her heavy drink­ing and a frac­tured mar­riage to Jonathan (Wen­dell Pierce), a high school Eng­lish teacher ready for them both to retire. Woodard as Berna­dine is rev­e­la­to­ry, an actress often over­looked and who reg­u­lar­ly deliv­ers qual­i­ty work that is tak­en for grant­ed, and Clemen­cy offers her the deeply com­pli­cat­ed lead role she was long overdue.

Woodard shines in the moments Berna­dine has to her­self, enrap­tured in thought and unre­spon­sive to the call of ​‘War­den’, or using the full strength of her body to gulp back tears. Hodge is equal­ly com­pelling as a man try­ing to remain dig­ni­fied and hope­ful in a whol­ly undig­ni­fied situation.

This is an ago­nis­ing adult dra­ma that is staunch­ly anti-cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment but that doesn’t rely on the frills of a heart-wrench­ing score, bom­bas­tic mono­logu­ing or swoop­ing cam­era moves. Chukwu’s direc­tion is tight. The per­for­mances are restrained and effec­tive. It’s quite a feat to place the audi­ence in the shoes of the exe­cu­tion­er, with no bio­graph­i­cal foot­notes to their actions, yet still imbu­ing them with the human intri­ca­cies that pre­vent them from becom­ing a stock villain.

See­ing the film orig­i­nal­ly at the 2019 Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val, I felt like I was try­ing to walk ankle deep through wet sand. Chuk­wu is a mas­ter of show don’t tell, and the deft emo­tion­al per­for­mances she elic­its from Woodard and Hodge make this heavy expe­ri­ence com­plete­ly worth it.