Clemency movie review: Award-winning death-row drama will tug at your heartstrings

3.5/5

Story: Being a death row prison warden is not a job, but a profession for Bernadine Williams, who prides herself for treating inmates awaiting execution with dignity. But years on the job, where she mechanically goes through the motions of explaining how the execution will be performed and asking those on death row about their last wishes, begins to take a toll on her.

Review: Clemency is not new – it’s a 2019 film, but one that was widely acclaimed back then, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and nominations for Best Feature, Female Lead and Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards, among many others. You haven’t heard of it probably because it didn’t get a theatrical release in India, but it’s here now, streaming on Netflix and you’ve got to watch it.

The film opens with death row prison warden Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodard) preparing an inmate, Victor Jimenez, for execution. The medical officer charged with administering the three injections can’t find a vein, though. He eventually manages to hook up the femoral vein, but instead of having the inmate peacefully slip away with drugs that will render him unconscious, paralyse and stop his heart, he gets violent seizures and then dies.

Under fire from the press, her bosses and activists fighting the death penalty for the botched execution, Bernadine’s next case is that of Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge), who has lost his last appeal, although he has always maintained his innocence. Although she puts on a brave face at work, the job is unravelling Bernadine, as she struggles with insomnia, nightmares and trouble in her marriage. No amount of after-work drinking helps her cause either.

One would expect Clemency to be about the inmates on death row, hoping against hope for a last-minute pardon to save them from their eventual fate. But Chinonye Chukwu’s film is told from the perspective of the prison warden, a woman who oversees men on death row, ensuring their paperwork is in order, explaining the execution process to them, while also making sure that their last wishes are carried out. She is there to give the go-ahead at the execution, and finally calling time of death. But she is not emotionally detached as she appears to be. It’s a struggle that Alfre Woodard internalizes beautifully. If you look at Woodard, especially her eyes, long enough, you can almost feel the pain her character goes through.

Verdict: Do not be fooled by the title; Clemency is not a film about the last-ditch efforts to be granted pardon and respite from the death row. It is about humanizing the men counting down to their last breath and the people charged with ensuring the executions proceed without a hitch. Watch this film for Woodard and Hodge; it will leave you a little misty-eyed.