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Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 50 Movies of 2020...

#3 : Clemency

Few films this year have been as blunt in their impact as this drama examining the US’s execution system. Alfre Woodard delivers a towering performance as a prison warden deeply troubled by the death row procedures she has to oversee, and whose personal life is increasingly affected by the psychic fallout.

Top 3 and I've still not seen any of the films - and seeing as I've already mentioned I've seen two of them on this list, you can probably tell that streak has to end soon.  I both did and didn't want to watch this one - I've heard good things about it, but I can't help but feel the subject matter is going to be pretty dark, so I'd have to be in the mood for it.  But here goes anyway...

So the film starts with someone being put to death - which I'm not entirely sure I'd ever be in the mood for.  It's well done with a trip round the various veins to find one that's suitable and then the curtain is opened to allow the assembled audience to view his last moments.  And then the curtain is quickly closed when it all starts to go a bit wrong.

And it soon becomes clear that, despite this film being set in a men's prison, what we have here is another female-lead film directed by a woman - they've bossed the top 10, haven't they?  Although, this film features a lot more interaction with men than we've seen in any of the others - only The Assistant really even attempted this and, given the nature of the relationships involved, it wasn't exactly what you'd call normal interaction.  And it's not really normal here either, but it's normal within the confines of a completely abnormal situation.

And given that it really is a completely abnormal situation, Alfre Woodward (how do you pronounce her name?) plays it well in pretending it's a completely normal situation - which I guess is the only way that you would be able to do this job (unless you actively enjoyed it, which feels like might possibly not be the best way to be).  And you'd have to say the whole cast plays it all very well - special mentions go to Aldis Hodge as the condemned man, Richard Schiff as his lawyer and Wendell Pierce (who bizarrely looks younger here than he did in The Wire - nearly 20 years ago) as her husband, but everyone really brings their A game to the party.

So, it's all very well acted and it's also very well written (all the characters are very well rounded compared to a lot of other films on this list which concentrate on just one or two - if you're lucky) and very well shot.  As has been the case recently, it's another film written and directed by one woman - Chinonye Chukwu, who spent six years researching prisons and executions to prepare for it.

So, having said all those nice things about it, there's one slight problem - I just didn't enjoy it.  In a lot of ways that's to the film's credit because you don't really want it to be a likeable or easy watch, but I'm afraid I found the whole thing just too hard to watch.  I would say it seems to present a strong argument against the death penalty but on that front it was simply preaching to the choir for me, so I'm probably not best placed to comment as to how effective the argument might be.

So, it's a good film which has a lot to say and says it well but I'm not entirely sure who would want to hear it.  And yes, maybe I'm just a snowflake who should be prepared to take a bit more suffering for his art - but haven't I suffered enough with this list already?  I'm going to file this under commendable rather than enjoyable - if you want to watch some fine acting then go ahead, but don't say I didn't warn you.

At the time of writing, the film is available to watch on Sky or to buy at the usual channels - I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone would want to watch this more than once though.

#4 - A hard-hitting documentary
#2 - The first film I'd previously seen!