Clemency Review
Years of carrying out death row executions have taken a toll on prison warden Bernadine Williams. As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill.
NR
Studios: NEON, ACE Pictures Entertainment, Big Indie Pictures, Bronwyn Cornelius Productions
Runtime: 1 Hour and 53 Minutes
Writer/Director: Chinonye Chukwu
Cast: Alfre Woodard, Wendell Pierce, Aldis Hodge
Release Date: December 27, 2019
In America there are hundreds of thousands of jobs and professions. Most require a specific set of qualifications, either physically or mentally. Some existing jobs are bizarre and insane, but in Chinonye Chukwu’s debut feature Clemency we follow Bernadine Williams, who might have the most horrible job in America… one that I didn’t even know existed.
The film centers on a death row warden named Bernadine Williams, whose job consists of watching over prisoners that have been given the death penalty and preparing them to face the end of their lives. The step-by-step procedures are morbid, but it’s Williams’s job to remain a neutral calm and be front and center during lethal injection proceedings. Given the obviously horrifying job she has, it psychologically disrupts her life at home with her loving school teacher husband. She maintains a strong exterior at work, but when she arrives home she feels the aching horror chewing her up from the inside, making her marriage difficult and her relationship with her husband ever so distant. Once a controversial prisoner named Anthony Woods becomes the next in line, Bernadine, whose emotions are at their highest at that moment, must retain her cool for the sake of her job.
If there’s one good thing about being 21 it’s the fact that whenever a film emotionally torments your soul and shakes you to your core with its realistic depiction of human emotion, you can legally get a drink. After this movie ends you might end up at a bar drinking your sorrows away. There’s no other way to put it. Out of all the friggin’ horrific movies of 2019 — even The Nightingale — Clemency is the movie that made me go, and I quote:
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.”
From the get-go it’s apparent that director Chinonye Chukwu did her research on the subject matter to authentically capture the truth behind an area of the criminal justice system that not much of the general public is exposed to. To prep, she went deep into the prison system, voluntarily attending clemency cases, met with wardens, lawyers, death row inmates, and tried to understand the system in every facet that she could to bring it to the big screen without cutting any corners or shying away from the graphic realities.
Also, please put Alfre Woodard in EVERYTHING! This actress has proven time and time again that she is 100% a superstar. With her performance as Bernadine, you see her exhibit both a tough, no-nonsense exterior while at the same time channeling the little glimpses of genuine humanity she must shove deep down. She delivers her lines with such conviction and confidence that it’s intimidating, but watching her break when all of her walls are broken down is tragic. Woodard delivers this barrage of relatable human complexities that's so hypnotic to witness. This performance solidifies her as a shoo-in for the Best Actress pool this year. As Kim K once said, it’s what she deserves.
Though her framework, Chukwu perfectly depicts the PTSD and trauma that comes with this fucked up job. Plus, it also displays the relative humanity that she and everyone else in her workplace has. It’s not just her who must be present for these lethal proceedings, for there are doctors and officers as well. This leads to scenes of the officers expressing how much they want to attend the next session and how they must screen a trainee in order to test their limits. There is a full-fledged process and, while it’s enlightening, it’s also bone-chillingly horrifying. Anyone in America who is an actual warden at a death row facility and doesn’t get tripped up as Bernadine does, congratulations, you’re psychotic. Capital punishment is still a legal penalty that exists in America, and while I do have my personal views on the subject that I don’t want to express, this movie does a great job persuading you to rethink your stance.
While the story primarily centers on Bernadine, Anthony Woods is the centerpiece of the story, for it mostly revolves around him — a wrongfully convicted inmate who is put on clemency and must rely on the state to keep him from getting lethally injected. Aldis Hodge, man. He’s going to take the world by storm someday because this… this is it. In my Brian Banks review I mentioned how he was held back in his performance and how he didn’t bring it there. Well, he brings it in Clemency. Aldis Hodge is truly the breakout star who delivers a haunting performance that breaks you to tears. Not to give much away, but there are three moments where he commands a scene with his body movement, silence, and tears that made me break down completely. He brings a game-changing performance and he’s phenomenal.
After a while, the picture stopped feeling like a movie and more like an examination of a death row facility, similar to a research project put in an insightfully poignant, fictionalized visual form — but it’s an A+ effort for sure.
You witness everyone’s role in the prison system and their genuine reactions firsthand. To watch these employees with hardcore exteriors be human and naturally feel the depressive subject of death that they’re in charge of conducting is the beauty of the movie. Every aspect of each character and the role they play in the system is logistical, yet their emotions are relative and you empathize with how they feel as they undergo this long and excruciating process.
Since death row is a law positioned by individual states, the movie could’ve benefited from specifying the exact location where this story takes place and elaborating more on the nationwide issue of the subject, but Chukwu’s central focus is on studying the psychology of the humans involved rather than the subject matter itself, which is fair. It probably would’ve been even more difficult to balance if her ambitions were higher, but I personally felt like she could’ve done it.
Realistic human portrayal of death set in our society, seeing people through pain and misery as they encounter death, is terrifying to men of color and chilling to the bone. This may be a drama, but to me this is a horror picture. Even with the added moments of levity that are incorporated to uplift the depressiveness of the scene, this movie is a damn killjoy. It’s fascinating and I highly recommend it, but mind you the side effects will include immediate depression and revolving thoughts about the crucially relevant topics facing the rigged and unjust American justice system. Detroit, Fruitvale Station, Clemency. All of these movies are terrifying to me, and yet they’re fascinating as hell. This is one of the most powerful and insightful films of the year.
Expressed through a fully-developed and brilliant screenplay, Clemency tackles the topic of the death row penalty in a thought-provoking argument with captivating, yet haunting, performances from Alfre Woodard and Aldis Hodge.
