In Clemency, Alfre Woodard plays Bernadine Williams, a straight laced, by-the-book warden at a high security prison whose experience in overseeing the execution of numerous inmates through her career begin to take a psychological toll on her. Well, “begins” might not be the right word to use here, as the film shows that she just hasn’t really been her old self for a long while now, especially in the mind of her husband, Jonathan (Wendell Pierce), who believes that she is a shell of a woman. He wants her to retire, but she doesn’t want to, despite the fact that her work doesn’t seem to bring much joy or fulfillment to her.
Considering what she has been going through with her work, it’s very easy to see why it can have such a strong effect. The film opens with an execution that doesn’t go as smoothly as intended. It’s a haunting sequence, and it plays out in a way that is very immediate and intimate, but also brings a sort of distance that makes it feel like you’re sitting there watching something you’re not supposed to. And piling on top of all the things she deals with in prison, she also has to face the pressures of systemic injustices and the ways they manifest in the US criminal justice and prison system.
She has a new execution that she’ll have to oversee. It is for Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge), he was convicted of killing a police officer over a decade ago, and has been waiting on death row ever since, though certain moments indicate some ambiguity over whether or not he actually did it, but that aspect isn’t given as big a focus as you might expect, which feels like a missed opportunity. Instead, you see how the inevitability weighs down on him, and his desire to find hope in a hopeless situation. We even see protests outside the prison calling for Anthony’s freedom, which only makes the burden for Bernadine even harder to carry as the film goes on.
The film explores the central character in a way that is surprising in the empathy for someone who basically murders for the government. The film sees the system in play as something that is biased, flawed, broken, and in desperate need of fixing. However, it retains a humanity for Bernadine, especially with her being a black woman being in that kind of position, which is a choice that is largely unaddressed on the text, but weighs very heavily in terms of how the films themes are informed.
Clemency comes from writer/director, Chinonye Chukwu, and this marks her second feature, but the way in which she plays with spaces, the sparse camera movements, use of silence, it seems like she’s been doing this forever. There’s a sense of someone keeping a command of everything happening, but not in a manner that gets in the way of what the story needs to be as effective as it needs to be. Also helping is the fact that Alfre Woodard gives one of her finest performances here. The rest of the cast has moments to shine, but it’s ultimately her movie, and she carries herself with such grace and vulnerability. It’s far from an easy watch, but it’s a rich and harrowing drama that remains engaging from its unsettling opening to its haunting final shot.