This film is part of Rentals
My Days of Mercy
Starring Elliot Page and Kate Mara, this sophomore feature from Tali Shalom-Ezer is a beautiful and poignant love story between two women from vastly different backgrounds and opposing political views.
Director: Tali Shalom Ezer
Overview
Lucy (Page) spends her weekends travelling around the Midwest in a battered RV alongside her younger brother Ben and with older sister Martha behind the wheel. Their destination: whichever federal prison is due to execute a death row inmate that night, so that they can join with their fellow protestors and advocate peacefully outside the institution’s walls for the abolition of the death penalty. During one such protest, Lucy’s eye is drawn to Mercy (Mara), from the opposite ‘camp’ (people who come and support the executions taking place). When Mercy brazenly flouts the unwritten rule of fraternising with the enemy and approaches the painfully shy Lucy, the scene is set for a heartwrenching love affair that threatens to shatter everything Lucy believes in, but which could ultimately set her free.
Working from a superb script by BAFTA-nominated British writer Joe Barton, Shalom-Ezer has crafted a love story filled with passion and truth, against a backdrop of one of the most polemical issues of our time. Whilst astutely observing the importance of the death penalty debate, Shalom-Ezer’s focus is on the burgeoning, opposites-attract love affair between Lucy and Mercy. And the on-screen chemistry between Page and Mara, offering up career-best performances, pulls you in and swallows you whole.
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