The death penalty is a hideous blot on the American criminal justice system. It goes hand-in-hand with police violence, with qualified immunity, with the brutalization of communities of color as another tool meant to give the State absolute authority over the life and death of its most vulnerable subjects. I say this upfront so-as to be clear about my biases. Clemency is a film that deals intimately with capital punishment. And while it isn’t an anti-death penalty screed or an issues documentary, I found it a remarkably powerful look at the human toll of execution.
“A medical professional will prepare you for your injection.”
Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodard) is a prison warden. Because her prison has a death row, one of her responsibilities is overseeing the executions of inmates. As the film opens, Victor Jimenez is being led to his death. Unfortunately, he isn’t well hydrated. It’s a small fact, but because of that, the medical professional has a hard time finding a vein for the needle. They test and prod before settling on the femoral artery, near his groin. Victor is in immense pain from all this — a pain that is amplified a thousandfold when the needle comes out. He isn’t paralyzed or unconscious; he feels himself dying.
It’s clear that Victor’s death is impactful. From there, we follow two story threads. The first sees Bernadine dealing with the aftermath of the botched execution, emotionally and legally. It’s clear that her job has a profound impact on her home life. Unfortunately, it’s equally clear that she can’t see that. As she prepares for another execution, her increasingly fragile emotional state causes issues with her husband (Wendell Pierce), an aging teacher
Meanwhile, Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge) is an inmate in Bernadine’s prison, awaiting execution. His lawyer, Marty Lumetta (Richard Schiff), knows that the appeals process is nearing its end. As Marty tries desperately to get Anthony another shot, Anthony tries to deal with his life. His ex (Danielle Brooks) has gotten in touch with him. He learns he has a son. He believes that this next appeal will set him free, or at least save his life. But when Marty tells him that the appeals process is over, Anthony has to face his imminent death.
“The officer will insert the Medazolam that will render you unconscious.”
Clemency opens with a procedural sequence showing the execution of a man that goes wrong. Writer/director Chinonye Chukwu doesn’t tell us much about what he did, or if he was guilty or innocent. Instead, the film simply presents the agony of the act. This caught my eye immediately, and not just because the scene was harrowing — staid direction stripping any suspense from the look of pain that should never been seen outside of a horror film. The smartest thing Clemency does is elide the question of guilt or innocence completely. Instead, it asks: Does anyone deserve this?
Instead, it asks: If they got this wrong, can we entrust them with this power?
It also forces us to reckon with Victor and Anthony as people. The American criminal justice system has a habit of stripping the humanity from people. We have evil criminals and martyrs innocently imprisoned. We have suspects and perps and victims. What we too often forget is that these are all just people. Some have made mistakes, certainly, but even the worst criminals — and the most heartless-seeming bureaucrats — remain human.
This is the strongest thread in Clemency, to me. Anthony is messy. As played by Hodge, Anthony is trying so hard to rise above his situation and find some hope. In one of the film’s most agonizing scenes, he is finally able to confront the girlfriend who abandoned him when he was arrested. He thinks she has come to ask for forgiveness, and in a scene reminiscent of Tayari Jones’ phenomenal American Marriage, the pain of imprisonment, the loneliness, the years of stewing and thinking, cause him to talk at her, past her. Chukwu’s writing here is brutally sensitive.
And you know what? Everyone here is just as messy. Bernadine is messy as hell! Chukwu’s film is political in the sense that all art is political, but her politics are those of empathy and compassion. Because she asks audiences to be empathetic to Victor and Anthony, sure, but also to Bernadine, the Warden overseeing their deaths.
“The second drug is pancuronium bromide, which causes paralyzation.”
Given that empathy, the film’s focus on Bernadine is interesting to me. We first meet her at her most panicked, and see how a decision she makes goes horribly wrong. While she feels bad for Victor — she can’t sleep without seeing the execution — she also can’t quite make herself stop. She grows furious at her husband when he suggests that they retire, causing (or widening) a rift in their marriage she has a hard time healing. Woodard plays Bernadine as exhausted, a woman drained of some vital force. Like Anthony, she craves intimacy; unlike him, however, she chooses her job over healing.
It wasn’t until the end of the film when I realized that I was watching a Greek tragedy. Bernadine’s flaw is simple: She respects the rules. She has dedicated her life to the enforcement of the rules. To Bernadine, the rules are both a social and moral necessity. When Mr. and Mrs. Collins, the parents of the slain police officer, ask if Bernadine can get them extra seats to the execution so their grandson can watch, the rules protect her: No, they can’t. They have a set number of seats. No, she hasn’t ever bent the rules. And when Marty Lumetta asks Bernadine if they can get some extra visitors in to see Anthony, she can again say: No. There are rules.
Bernadine needs the rules, and needs them to be just. She has spent her adult life overseeing the imprisonment and execution of human beings. Of inmates. Of ‘convicts’. People who wouldn’t be there if they had followed the rules. If she were to confront the idea that the rules as they exist may be immoral, that these rules were destroying her mental health, well… why has she denied visitation to these men? Why couldn’t she spare an extra seat?
Why has she killed so many people?
“The last drug is potassium chloride, which will cease heart function.”
And then there’s the title: Clemency. There’s no clemency, no last minute reprieve, to be found here. And yet, Bernadine waits before each execution in eager expectation for a call from the governor that never arrive. She doesn’t want to kill these people. But those are the rules.
Similarly, Bernadine is herself offered a kind of clemency — which she turns down. Her assistant tells her that there’s an opening for a warden at another nearby prison, one with no death row. He seems to be hinting that she should apply. Instead, she recommends him for the job. Anthony had no choice; he was murdered by the State. Bernadine chose her slow and agonizing fall.
The movie opens on an execution, and it closes on one. It closes on two, really. Because by the end, Bernadine seems like a dead woman walking. She’s alive, certainly, and Anthony is not. But Alfre Woodard, already a subtle actor, seems to abandon life entirely in that moment. It’s the climax of a great performance from a phenomenal actress, and Chukwu lingers on it with an intimacy that bordered on uncomfortable.
“At that point, medical personnel will confirm the execution complete.”
The power of Clemency, to me, is at the intersection of these two stories. At the horrifying stain the legal system has painted across the souls of Bernadine, her guards, the lawyers, the priest. Clemency is a slow and measured drama, one with no real twists or turns. And yet its almost procedural nature makes the moments when the emotion escapes hit all the harder.
This is a mature, thoughtful film that takes the lives and hearts of people seriously, even people who do monstrous things. It’s easy to make a rational or moral argument against the death penalty. I think it’s also easy to make an impassioned argument for the death penalty. What’s harder, and maybe more necessary, is just to step back and look at the effect it has on the people who live in its shadow. That, more than anything else, is what Chukwu’s film is exceptional at doing.
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Clemency is currently streaming on Hulu.