Military Wives - Official Trailer

This film is rated M. In cinemas March 12, 2020. 112 minutes.

With their partners away serving in Afghanistan, a group of women on the home front form a choir and quickly find themselves at the center of a media sensation and global movement.

Originally published in The Hollywood Reporter, 6 September 2019.

Director Peter Cattaneo seems to have been on a prolonged career hiatus ever since his last three features (Lucky Break, Opal Dream and The Rocker) failed to even vaguely approximate the astonishing return on investment that distinguished his 1997 breakout sleeper hit The Full Monty. However, Cattaneo's latest, the eminently entertaining Military Wives, has every chance — just like in any Hollywood rise-fall-rise-again movie — of resurrecting the British director's stock again.

At the very least, it forms a pleasing companion piece to Full Monty by again deploying an eclectic, likeably normal-looking ensemble (nearly all women this time instead of men) to tell a story about a relatively unsung group of amateurs (this time the spouses of armed forces personnel instead of Full Monty's unemployed steel workers) who build self-esteem through performance (choral singing instead of stripping). Sure, it shamelessly panders to our collective sense of duty to support the troops — and, of course, also support the families that support the troops — and maybe it's more than a little manipulative and formulaic. But gosh darn it, it's hard not to warm to a film that features an a cappella version of Yazoo's "Only You," a near-derelict car that may or may not be called Shite Rider and Kristin Scott Thomas having a verbal catfight in a parking lot.

By some distance the biggest name in the cast, Scott Thomas seems to be enjoying herself here as a poshly accented, cashmere-clad queen bee who is married to the ranking officer (Greg Wise) at a fictional army base (as opposed to all those roles where she played a poshly accented, cashmere-clad lady with other sorts of spouses living in other locales). Given the way that the social hierarchy on the base mirrors that of the soldiers themselves, Scott Thomas' Kate is supposed to be a little apart from everyone else but still in a kind of service to the base, making sure everything is ticking over as it should, part chatelaine, part PTA president.

According to these unwritten rules, it's the job of the partner of whoever is the troop's current staff sergeant to organize regular communal activities to keep morale up when the spouses are on deployment. Therefore, when most of the base's soldiers are sent to Afghanistan for a tour, this role falls on the shoulders of down-to-earth Irishwoman Lisa (Sharon Horgan), who runs the on-base convenience store and is currently struggling to bring up her and husband's smart but mouthy teenage daughter Frankie (India Ria Amarteifio, making an impression).

However, having not long ago done the job herself, and without much to do these days apart from keep the house spotless and try not to dwell on her grief over the death of her son, a soldier killed in combat, Kate can't resist meddling in Lisa's efforts to organize new activities for this tour of duty. During one of the coffee mornings hosted by Lisa, Kate press-gangs Lisa into writing down the suggestions on a whiteboard of other things the wives can do.

When recently arrived newlywed Sarah (Amy James-Kelly) suggests forming a choir, natural showoff Kate is thrilled but knows she won't get the other women to take part unless Lisa, a much better-liked person among the spouse crowd, is nominally the leader. Lisa is hesitant at first, but given that her own mother taught music and hints are dropped that she may have been in a band herself at one point, she gets into the idea as long as they sing pop songs and not the classical pieces and hymns Kate is keen on.

Structurally, the script credited to Rachel Tunnard and Rosanne Flynne efficiently deploys every trope in the arsenal of zero-to-hero storytelling, including the revelation that one of the gang, Jess (Gaby French), has an impressive natural talent. ("Of course, it would be the Welsh one," snarks one woman, a knowing nod to the stereotypical image of Welsh people as tremendous vocalists.)

As if guided by an algorithm, the script maneuvers Kate and Lisa into a growing friendship cemented on a confidence about the death of Kate's son, all the better to engineer a dramatic rift between them that can be healed in the final minutes. Indeed, the narrative keeps placing patently artificial roadblocks in the way of the women's ultimate goal of performing at London's Royal Albert Hall for a charity Remembrance Day concert, just so that the final triumphant achievement of their goal will feel all the sweeter before the obligatory montage of the real-world counterparts who inspired the story. Equally predictable, but more justified given the context, is the inevitable moment they've all been dreading when one of the women receives the horrible news that her husband has been killed in combat.

As it happens, it's a sequence handled with considerable sensitivity, generating suspense over who the widow will be in a way that underscores the random cruelty of war. The reaction of the bereaved wife (it seems unfair to the actor not to say who it is, but it would spoil the moment) is beautifully performed, a study in shock long prepared for. Her performance develops even more nuance when Scott Thomas' Kate comes over to comfort her, prompting a gloriously layered display of conflicting emotions from Kate, including empathy, hesitancy to show that empathy in case it triggers her own grief, practicality and warmth — all buttressed with smartly written dialogue that rings true to how women like this might sound.

It's those little flickers of authenticity throughout that really kick the movie up a notch, discoverable in subtle moments like when rivals Kate and Lisa trade polite passive-aggressive barbs, always punctuated with grimacing smiles of insincerity. Horgan proves to be a more the capable sparring partner to Scott Thomas, but in fact the ensemble is packed with sparky little turns from the supporting players, such as seasoned character actor Laura Checkley, funny as all get out as soccer-mad Cockney Maz; Emma Lowndes (from Downton Abbey) as an unsentimental straight shooter; and scene-stealing Lara Rossi as a lesbian hairdresser who seems to be almost clinically tone deaf.

For more great movies head to www.movieschangepeople.com

Military Wives - Reviews and Info

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, a film festival devoted to faith-based films will be happening in Australian cinemas. In partnership with HOYTS, HERITAGE FILMS will be bringing a wide range of hope-filled, uplifting and inspirational content to be seen around the nation from April 5-28. The festival will launch just prior to Easter, with special Easter-themed movies. It then kicks into gear following Easter with two weeks of curated content screenings.

Films include: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, HACKSAW RIDGE, PAUL THE APOSTLE, THE EASTER EXPERIENCE, BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN, LOUD KRAZY LOVE, THE LEAST OF THESE, JUST MERCY and THE HEART OF MAN.

The program has been created following the engaging individual theatrical releases of each of the above films. The result is a far-reaching program with content for everyone!

Also presenting the AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE, as part of the festival, of SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME, starring Renee Zellweger and Greg Kinnear, the film adaptation of the New York Times best-selling memoir of the same name.

Scroll down to find out more about this gorgeous film! 

The festival will take place at participating HOYTS cinemas around the country. 

SYDNEY: Showground, Chatswood, Blacktown, Bankstown, Penrith, Warringah Mall

MELBOURNE: Chadstone, Eastland, Northlands

After 15 years of working with cinema exhibitors across the country, Heritage Films are delighted to announce that this collaboration came out of the initiative of HOYTS. It was they who had the vision for this festival and approached Heritage (given our extensive background in this space) to curate the program. It is hoped that this may become an annual or bi-annual event.

We have promotional opportunities. Feel free to get in touch!

WEB: www.movieschangepeople.com         

Mailing address: P.O BOX 1520, Coolum Beach, QLD. 4573, Australia

Successful businessman Ron Hall and his wife, Deborah, discover a renewed sense of purpose when they begin to volunteer at a local mission in Fort Worth, Texas. Their lives change forever when they develop an unlikely friendship with Denver Moore, a homeless man who inspires them to save their struggling marriage.

WRITTEN BY: Ron Hall, Alexander Foard and Michael Carney

See more: Interview with Rennee Zellweger, Greg Kinnear and Djimon Hounsou

 The film is based on a best-selling memoir of the same name, co-written by Moore, Hall and Lynn Vincent, that has sold over a million copies.

 In brief: in 1998, millionaire art dealer Ron Hall, a Texan, father of two and an adulterer, promised he’d do anything to win back his wife Debbie. She gave him a challenge: help her feed the homeless at Fort Worth’s Union Gospel Mission and befriend the scariest man on the block, an ex-felon and murderer named Denver “Suicide” Moore.

What it’s not, Ron says, is a story about a wealthy “art dealer millionaire that saved this poor, African-American homeless man. Nothing could be further from the truth. This man saved me from myself.” Moore “became my mentor in life. He taught me the way to live, not the other way around. He saved me from being an arrogant, self-centered art dealer, to becoming someone who actually cares about the well-being of others.”

It started with the adultery that Debbie forgave. In return, her husband pledged to do anything she asked him to do. Debbie agreed to never again mention his infidelity, and, he says, “she was true to that promise.” For at least a decade, Debbie asked not a single thing of Hall — until she did. She awoke one night, telling him about a dream she had had, about “a poor man who’s wise, and through his wisdom, our lives and our city are changed forever.”

He and Debbie cruised the toughest streets of Cowtown, looking for the man in her dream. They ended up at Union Gospel Mission, where Hall and his wife offered to serve food to the homeless and hungry waiting in line. “The smell,” Hall says, “just took me down. It was so nasty.” It's where he met Moore. The story of their relationship forms the backbone of the book and the movie.

Moore moved in with Hall in 2000, the year Debbie died of cancer. Moore gave the eulogy at her funeral. Hall calls it "one of the most beautiful, heartfelt speeches I've ever heard," saying it drew a prolonged standing ovation from a crowd of nearly 1,000.

In 2012, Moore died. "By then, he and I had become closer than brothers," Hall says.  “When he moved in with me, he had nothing. But he gave me everything.” 

Together, he and Denver helped to raise a reported $90 million (according to Ron Hall) for homeless shelters across the country—a remarkable harvest reaped from the seeds planted by his wife's simple-but-profound love.

PRAISE FOR ‘SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME’

“A must-see movie, with valuable lessons about Christian faith and love”

"The performances by Kinnear, Zellweger and especially Hounsou sneak up on you, building to an emotional, but not overstated climax”

“This profound story reminds us that no matter how deep the differences that separate us, just a bit of love may help us to see others' dignity instead of choosing not to see them at all”

FAITH FILM FESTIVAL

EMMA Official Trailer (2020) Anya Taylor-Joy, Jane Austen Comedy Movie HD

This film is rated PG. In cinemas 21 February (with Valentine's Day screenings Feb 14). 129 minutes.

Jane Austen's beloved comedy about finding your equal and earning your happy ending, is reimagined in this delicious new film adaptation of EMMA. Handsome, clever, and rich, Emma Woodhouse is a restless queen bee without rivals in her sleepy little town. In this glittering satire of social class and the pain of growing up, Emma must adventure through misguided matches and romantic missteps to find the love that has been there all along.

Originally published in Variety, February 3, 2020.

Autumn de Wilde offers a handsome, clever, faithfully unambitious take on the Jane Austen classic.

Jane Austen has been through a lot on screen in recent years. From watching details of her own life contorted into a romantic comedy framework in “Becoming Jane,” seeing her most enduring masterpiece invaded by the undead in “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” or observing the cottage merchandising and tourism industry that has sprung up in her wake in “Austenland,” one longs to imagine the saltine-dry turn of phrase she might have used to describe the splintering and commodification of her own legacy. But barring that, there’s something quite comforting in seeing her work returned to a more natural habitat: adapted into handsome, clever, faithfully unambitious films like Autumn de Wilde’s “Emma.”

As the film’s title card and poster tell us, the proper rendering of de Wilde’s “Emma” is not simply “Emma” but “Emma.” — period and all. It’s unclear why the filmmakers insisted on end punctuation, especially considering the extreme unlikelihood that this will be the last word on the material. The final novel Austen published before her death, “Emma” has been adapted numerous times before – perhaps most memorably when toplined by first-time leading lady Gwyneth Paltrow in 1996, and more recently by Romola Garai in the BBC’s 2009 miniseries — and this newest addition is an entirely worthy companion, though hardly a definitive take.

Strangely, considering how often filmmakers have returned to this particular well, “Emma” has always been an easy enough novel to tackle, but a more difficult beast to fully capture. It’s both one of Austen’s funniest and least eventful works, and so many of its pleasures come from the subtle tonal sleights of hand that she plays on the reader throughout. Emma Woodhouse is a snob — often comically deluded, sometimes casually cruel in spite of her good intentions — but the ostensibly objective third-person narration of the novel (arguably Austen’s most sophisticated employment of her free indirect style) stays so carefully in her corner for most of the book that the reader only recognizes the full extent of her snobbery as the character does herself. Making this work on screen is trickier than it sounds. (And frankly, of all “Emma’s” cinematic interpreters, Amy Heckerling probably found the cleverest substitute for Austen’s tone in Cher Horowitz’s ditzily self-assured narration in “Clueless.”)

For this reason, Emma herself can’t help but come across as a bit of a cipher through this film’s opening stages, played by Anya Taylor-Joy with glamorous poise and a light sheen of frost. Like the book, the film opens as our 20-year-old protagonist is preparing for the wedding of her governess, a pairing she credits to her own matchmaking skills. Content to swan through her lavish country estate while a pair of long-suffering servants attend to the ludicrous demands of her hypochondriac father (played by Bill Nighy in an uncontested layup of casting), Emma is hardly in a rush to find a match for herself, though she follows news of a particularly eligible bachelor, the ever-elusive Frank Churchill (Callum Turner), with discreet interest.

In the meantime, she’s tasked herself with mentoring dewy teenager Harriet Smith (the all-astonishment Mia Goth), a low-born student at a local boarding school whose infatuation with an honorable farmer Emma disapproves of; pursuing a simmering rivalry with accomplished orphan Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson); and maintaining a semi-flirtatious discourse with her sardonic neighbor and in-law, Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn, figuratively and literally fighting with his stiff, high collar through most of his scenes).

For all her background in photography and music videos, first-time feature director de Wilde rarely goes overboard with ornamentation or style, nor does she dirty up the surroundings in the manner of Joe Wright’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which sought to remind us that Austen’s elegant country lords and ladies were all likely stepping over piles of manure and dodging flocks of farm animals as they took a turn around the grounds. Here, the drawing rooms and gardens are all dollhouse-tidy, though never unduly grand, and the occasional nods toward Wes Anderson-style preciousness in the design — the decorous title cards marking the change of seasons, the red-shawled boarding school girls traipsing through town like ducklings in single-file — are rarely overdone. (If only one could say the same for the score by Isobel Waller-Bridge and David Schweitzer, which keeps asserting itself like an overeager puppy, as though nervous about being missed amid all of the Mozart sonatas and 18th-century hymns on the soundtrack.)

Screenwriter Eleanor Catton does deft work adapting the novel, not only retaining all of the plot points that matter, but also keeping in plenty of the ones that don’t, as this is a story that should always be able to accommodate stray tangents, diversions and flashes of buttoned-down anarchy. As for the latter, several of Miss Bates’ hailstorms of non sequitur sentence fragments survive intact, delivered by Miranda Hart with just the right mixture of ridiculousness and pathos. Likewise, most of the better supporting parts are aced here — from Anderson’s dyspeptic take on Jane Fairfax to Tanya Reynolds’ thoroughly hissable Mrs. Elton. (Mr. Elton, the local vicar with ill-fated eyes for Emma, is somewhat more strangely handled — here portrayed by Josh O’Connor as a bit of a bumbling incel.) But as always, an Austen adaptation lives or dies on the suitability of its central coupling, and Taylor-Joy and Flynn have decently charming chemistry together, with the former allowing her icy reserve to melt in slow stages, and the latter (who may strike some Austen formalists as an odd choice for the role) using his rougher, more modern characteristics to give Knightley’s moments of rigor — “badly done, Emma” — a bit of bite.

The question of how much to contemporize an Austen adaptation is always an open one. However many blueprints might exist, interpreting the author will likely only get tougher and tougher as the Regency culture she depicted grows smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, its customs and mores beginning to more closely resemble curious anthropological phenomena than simply hyper-formal precursors to our own. As Virginia Woolf once observed, Austen was the rare cutting satirist who, at heart, “had no wish for things to be other than they are,” and so to really appreciate an Austen story you have to be able to laugh, as she did, at the pettiness of her characters’ quarrels, the smallness of their scandals, and the needlessly roundabout curlicues of their romances while also being deeply and sincerely invested in their outcomes. But at least for now, the more you do for them, the less they do for themselves, and de Wilde is smart enough to trust her source material where it counts.

Emma. - Reviews and Info

A HIDDEN LIFE | Official Trailer [HD] | FOX Searchlight

This film is rated PG. In selected theatres from January 30. 174 minutes.

Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter faces the threat of execution for refusing to fight for the Nazis during World War II.

Austria, 1939. Peasant farmer Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), born and bred in the small village of St. Radegund, is working his land when war breaks out. Married to Franziska (Fani) (Valerie Pachner), the couple are important members of the tight-knit rural community. They live a simple life with the passing years marked by the arrival of the couple's three girls. Franz is called up to basic training and is away from his beloved wife and children for months. Eventually, when France surrenders and it seems the war might end soon, he is sent back from training. With his mother and sister-in-law Resie (Maria Simon), he and his wife farm the land and raise their children amid the mountains and valleys of upper Austria. Many scenes depict cutting and gathering hay, as well as the broad Inn River. As the war goes on, Jägerstätter and the other able-bodied men in the village are called up to fight. Their first requirement is to swear an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Despite pressure from the Mayor and his farm neighbors, who increasingly ostracize him and his family, and from the Bishop of Salzburg, Jägerstätter refuses. Wrestling with the knowledge that his decision will mean arrest and even death, Jägerstätter finds strength in Fani's love and support. Jägerstätter is taken to prison, first in Enns, then in Berlin and waits months for his trial. During his time in prison, he and Fani write letters to one another and give each other strength. Fani and their daughters are victims of growing hostility in the village over her husband's decision not to fight. Fani is eventually able to visit her husband in Berlin.

After months of brutal incarceration, his case goes to trial. He is found guilty and sentenced to death. Despite many opportunities to sign the oath of allegiance, and the promise of non-combatant work, Jägerstätter continues to stand up for his beliefs and is executed by the Third Reich in August 1943, while his wife and three daughters survive.

Originally published by Reel Dialogue, January 2020.

In the world of cinema, there are few names like Terrence Malick to cause feelings of impassioned enthusiasm and utter confusion. A groundbreaking writer/director known for The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life who would be classified as a visionary to many while entirely inaccessible to the majority of the world’s cinematic population. A filmmaker who comes out with a project every two or three years that delves into subject matters like the human condition and faith encased in a beautiful visual interpretation of this world. A Hidden Life is a true story that affords Malick all of the necessary components to show his mastery of visual storytelling of the best and worst of humanity. 

The village of St. Radegund is a quiet community of farmers nestled in the beautiful mountains of Austria. Franz (August Diehl) and Franziska (Valerie Pachner) Jägerstätter live a picturesque rural life with their three daughters, his mother and Fani’s sister, Resie (Maria Simon). This couple represents the ideal marriage and family life of a healthy farm life. Until the impact of World War II and Hitler’s Third Reich reach over the mountains into their little township. Initially, Franz is merely called up to participate in the army’s basic training, but is allowed to return to his family and continue to support the war effort through their farm. 

As the war continues on and the Austrian army is dragged into the Nazi’s military machine, the men of St. Radegund expect to be called for service at any time. This includes swearing an oath to the allegiance of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, which becomes a step too far for Franz. He refrains from supporting the German army financially and eventually resists serving the Fuhrer in his war effort. This leads to his family being ostracised by the people of the small community. Even more frightening than the rejection of his friends and family, the most significant concern will be his eventual arrest and potential death sentence for this moral stand against Hitler. His resistance leads him to be thrown into a series of prisons until his trial would take place to determine his fate. During his incarceration, Franziska must maintain the family farm and endure the rejection of those she had called friends for years. 

What is evident throughout the 174 minutes is that Malick desires to capture every emotional and visual element of the Jägerstätter’s journey through this heartbreaking season of their lives. The majority of the film is told through their correspondence during this tumultuous time. These letters provide a beautiful depiction of their marriage and the love for their family along with the relationships expressed on the screen. The celebrated director exposes the beauty of their love, the majestic elements of the landscapes that surround the little enclave and the tragic impact of their moral decisions to take a stand against evil. It shows how their Christian faith drove their convictions and helped them to endure the persecution and brutal treatment inside prison and out amongst the people. 

Diehl and Pachner’s performances capture the relational ties of what drives their passions for one another, their extended family and their perseverance through the difficulties of this story. Their words are complemented by the beautiful lands surrounding their farm, the Inn River’s tranquillity and the physicality of the actors . This was a fascinating way to tell a tale that contains little dialogue, but the message of the film comes through clearly though this brilliant combination of filmmaking. 

The only knock against this potential masterwork is the director’s inability to ruthlessly edit his own work. The message of faith, family and sacrifice is made inaccessible to audiences because of the unnecessary length. The simple complexity of this biographical journey could have been cut down to allow people to engage with this film. A Hidden Life should be on the ‘must-see’ lists of everyone attending the theatre this year. Still, the length will have this relegated to arthouse cinemas and film festivals. Once again giving a win to the streaming services, the modern-day location audiences use to discover films of this quality.  

For all of those who can get past the movie’s run time, you will be rewarded for your perseverance. Terrence Malick has put together one of his best films in years. One that should be considered for anyone that enjoys excellent cinema, rich storylines and unabashed and fearless depictions of faith in film. 

A Hidden Life - Reviews and Info

Ride Like A Girl - Official Trailer

This film is rated PG. On DVD and digital January 8. 94 minutes.

The story of Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup.

Originally published by Reel Dialogue, December 2019.

The Melbourne Cup has been known in history as being the race that stopped a nation. This horse race has been a mainstay on the Australian calendar since 1861. A day of pageantry, an excuse to wear fancy hats and justification for people to take time off from work to watch horses racing for two-miles around the oval at Flemington is what this event offers. In 2015, Michelle Payne entered the legendary race on Prince of Penzance with the dream of being the first female jockey to win, but at 100 to 1, few thought she could achieve this historic feat. 

Growing up as the youngest child in a family of 10 in a horse racing family, Michelle (Teresa Palmer) lived, breathed and loved this challenging sport. Her father, Paddy (Sam Neill), had raised the large family for most of their lives after the death of his wife and the children’s mother. This household led to a tight-knit and competitive atmosphere for all of the children. Not only did it provide a loving home for the Payne’s to mature in, but most of the children eventually became jockeys or found their careers in the industry. Despite being a good student, Michelle chose to leave school at 15 years of age to become a jockey. 

As she pursued her dream, the young jockey had to work through traditions, discrimination within the sport, a multitude of personal accidents and family tragedies to achieve her goals. With the wisdom of her father, the support of her siblings and the unfailing love of her brother, Stevie (played by the actual Stevie Payne), Michelle continued to work to keep her place on the tracks of Australia. When Darren Weir (Sullivan Stapleton) allowed her to ride Prince of Penzance, his talented, but injury-prone horse, things changed for both athlete and animal. This combination led Michelle to pursue the only dream for most Australian jockeys, to ride in the Melbourne Cup.

History has already been written in the story of Michelle Payne and she is known as the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup. Even though Rachel Griffiths manages to portray the race day with all of the passion and intensity needed for fans of the sport, the highlight for her directorial debut was focussing on the extraordinary lives of the Payne family. Michele is the centrepiece of the story and Teresa Palmer delivers one of the best performances of her career, but the magic of the film comes when seeing into her relationship with her family. Proving that behind every individual achievement of key sporting figures there is usually a group of people and situations that lead to the athlete achieving their goals. 

The Payne’s story shows that nothing in this life of value comes easy, but it can be made more bearable and achievable with the support of family. Sam Neill is in a supporting role, but he does provide the foundational element needed to move this movie from good to great. Griffiths’ choice to cast Stevie as himself in the film was brilliant and where Neill provides the strength for the Payne family, it is Stevie who represents the heart and humour. Every cast member proves to provide the support that helps this film to become one of the most inspiring and entertaining stories of the year. 

Ride Like a Girl - Reviews and Info

Just Mercy | Main Trailer | 2020 [HD]

This film is rated M. In cinemas January 23. 137 minutes.

World-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner.

Powerful and thought-provoking, “Just Mercy” follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley (Larson). One of his first, and most incendiary, cases is that of Walter McMillian (Foxx), who, in 1987, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and the fact that the only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie. In the years that follow, Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter, and others like him, with the odds—and the system—stacked against them.

Originally published in The Washington Post, January 6.

The stirring, stylish legal drama “Just Mercy” feels familiar on several levels. The story of a wrongly accused man sent to death row, it joins such films as “Dead Man Walking” and the more recent “Clemency” as an affecting examination of how justice is confused with inhumane retribution. Based on factual events, “Just Mercy” is the story of Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian, who in 1987 was arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, but who was railroaded by a racist and incompetent legal system in Alabama — a story that is as old as the rugged cross itself. McMillian’s case became famous by way of a “60 Minutes” episode and the memoir of Bryan Stevenson, a brilliant, Harvard-educated attorney who came to his defense and has gone on to become a visionary leader in criminal justice reform.

Both on a macro and micro level then, “Just Mercy” — which takes its title from Stevenson’s book — might feel like something we’ve seen before. But in the judicious hands of director and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton, it feels not new exactly, but fresh and urgent and more timely than ever.

Largely, that’s because Cretton, best known for his exceptionally assured 2013 breakthrough “Short Term 12,” knows exactly when to get out of the way and let Stevenson and McMilllian’s story simply unfold. “Just Mercy” begins in 1987, when McMillian — played in an astonishing comeback performance by Jamie Foxx — is in a forest outside Monroeville, where he works as a pulpwood contractor. Arrested for the murder of a white dry cleaning clerk back in town, McMillian insists he couldn’t have committed the crime (he was at a church fish fry that day along with several witnesses). Still, he winds up on death row, the result of countless assaults on his human and constitutional rights that will continue once he’s there.

McMillian would have been just another statistic of structural racism and irrational fear and revenge, had Stevenson not decided to move from the Northeast to Monroeville, where upon his arrival he’s encouraged to visit the “To Kill a Mockingbird” museum and to stand “right where Atticus Finch once stood.” In “Just Mercy,” the painful and infuriating gaps between myth and reality of the contemporary South aren’t underlined as much as opened up and revealed, allowing audience members to come to conclusions that will range from wincing discomfort to outrage.

Played by Michael B. Jordan with his usual combination of composure and submerged fire, Stevenson is the main protagonist in “Just Mercy,” but this isn’t a biopic. As much as viewers come to admire him for his courage and dedication, they don’t necessarily come to feel they know him. Similarly Brie Larson, who plays Eva Ansley, who joined Stevenson in founding the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative, is often relegated to little more than providing awkward chunks of earnest exposition. There are moments when “Just Mercy” threatens to become as meandering and mired-down as McMillian’s case itself.

But Cretton keeps the narrative on course, leading the audience through the stakes and specifics of Stevenson’s quest with welcome clarity. Perhaps ironically, “Just Mercy” comes most to life on death row, where, when Stevenson first visits him, he’s ordered to submit to a humiliating strip search. A group of prisoners act as a moving Greek chorus while Stevenson doggedly searches for the truth and McMillian awaits a fate that feels tragically preordained. “That’s how it’s done down here,” McMillian says in one scene; it’s an eloquent if dispiriting summation of the emotional labor it takes to manage the anxiety, aggression and impunity otherwise known as white supremacy.

Foxx, delivering one of the finest performances of his career in a role that involves as dramatic a physical transformation as his Oscar-winning turn in “Ray,” is joined by an equally impressive supporting cast, which includes O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Darrell Britt-Gibson and Rob Morgan, who brings enormous sympathy to a prisoner whose extenuating circumstances throw the perversity of the death penalty into heartbreaking relief. Punctuated by a twitchy, uncannily on-point turn from Tim Blake Nelson as a crucial witness named Ralph Myers, “Just Mercy” is transformed from a mere billboard declaring that racism is bad to an intimate, immediate and deeply moving portrait of the trauma and psychic toll imposed on its victims and practitioners.

Propelled by a liltingly beautiful musical score by Joel P. West, “Just Mercy” keeps its emotions on a low simmer, its absorbing, tautly designed drama finally coming to a climax that is satisfying on one level, and absolutely shattering on another. From its smooth visuals and warm, swinging sounds to its magnificent performances, “Just Mercy” is masterfully constructed to keep us inside a story that otherwise would be too brutal to bear.

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