Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency in many ways is the antithesis to every prison movie that came before it. This is a film about the prison - not just the prisoners or the violence they inflict on each other and the act of survival necessary for making it through your sentence but the powerlessness you yield once you become confined to its cell. Clemency also features a prison warden - played by Alfre Woodward who is earning deserved award buzz for her performance - who isn’t violent, dictatorial or cartoonish. It’s about her struggles as well, as someone who administers death but wants to escape it. In her lifelong career as a prison warden, she oversees executions by lethal injection and we see how this weighs on her and disrupts her life.

The film opens with a slow and tense 5-minute sequence of a lethal injection gone awry. Chukwu’s camera is incredibly despondent throughout the scene and for the remainder of the film even when we escape the prison and spend time at home with the warden. It’s the camera’s stillness that acts as an even greater insight into the psychological trauma that working in a prison can have on a person. This also sets the stage for the troubles to come for Alfre Woodward’s warden as the failure to secure a “humane” execution has political implications and angers the public. Protesters stand outside the prison throughout the film to remind her of her failures.

The center of the film focuses though, on a death row inmate who has been fighting for 15 years to overturn his conviction. Aldis Hodges is incredible as the convict Robert Woods. Hodges plays him with a tremendous, wide-eyed clarity. The fight for his release and clemency gives him hope, along with a heartbreaking sequence where he first learns of his son who is 15 years old. The idea of having a family doesn’t destroy him while he remains locked up but instead leaves him reassured that his name will live on if he can’t make it out of prison. He also plays the role with an innocence that feels purposeful as the director wants us to believe he’s not a murderer and it’s the real reason the film is emotionally successful - even if some of the plot points fail later on.

The film goes to a great length to make a case that the warden is undergoing PTSD from witnessing all the executions. Her home life is in turmoil and affecting her English teacher husband played with the utmost grace by Wendell Pierce. The famed The Wire actor is having a great year and is showcasing his scene-chewing ability (see him in Burning Cane as an alcoholic priest) when given a role with enough heft. There’s one scene where we see him in the classroom and he’s reading the opening passages of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. The Invisible Man is the perfect subtext for Aldis Hodges’s character - a black man who the film is arguing has been wrongly convicted. A faceless governor is talked about throughout and oversees the finality of Woods’ death sentence and you can’t help but dig through the politics of the prison industrial complex’s racial biases towards black men and women.

Another theme of the movie is our desire to have a clearly defined existence - one where we can make sense of our role in society and understand why where we’re useful and why we have a purpose. Both her and Woods’ lawyer played by Richard Schiff (he makes any movie better when he’s grumpy) says announcing his retirement made him want to vomit.

Both struggle to see a future where they can be happy without having the responsibility of work. They are pressured by the hardships of their job to retire, and by their spouses who say they aren’t emotionally available. But, retirement for them isn’t a new chapter, it’s the end of the road. It’s also the best “I need a fucking drink” movie I’ve seen this year as almost all characters escape to the bar or a bottle to cope with how hard their work weeks are. It’s a sad acknowledgment that maybe work life isn’t satisfying and the drink is how they numb their sadness.

Clemency is emotionally wrought, devastating, complex and exhausting. The lethal injection sequences are sure to make even horror buffs squeamish. The impact of watching people die, strapped to a chair with no help is profound because of how well Woodward conveys the trauma. Even when the film loses it’s footing, as it wants to paint the story of the prison industrial complex on such a wide canvas and doesn’t always make sense of its character arcs or rushes to its end. But still, its political conscience and morals are felt to be in the right place as it’s not only an effective thriller but a deeply felt psychodrama about the hardships that come with working in a prison and those who get lost behind the bars.

Dec 26 Film Review: Clemency

Dec 27 Weekend Portfolio: Stephen Kelley

Dec 25 Woman Crush Wednesday: Jill Waterman

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