My Days of Mercy has all the checkpoints I look for. Two female stars: Ellen Page and Kate Mara. A female director: Tali Shalom-Ezer. Check and check. But it’s taken two years for the film to get distribution since it debuted at TIFF.
Even now that My Days of Mercy has found distribution, it will available only On Demand or for Digital download.
The film is a lesbian love story set against the background of the death penalty. The two main characters are both personally involved in the issue but are on opposite sides.
Originally titled Mercy, the film received decent reviews when it opened at TIFF. Trish Bendix gave it good press on Nylon, which you might expect from that reviewer for a lesbian romance. However, The Hollywood Reporter also gave it a good review, saying, “What’s agreeable and appealing here is how slowly and naturalistically matters gestate between the two; it does seem somewhat contrived that two such diametrically opposed women could clear a path toward a relationship, but their obsessions overlap to a degree, just as there could be unknown separate issues that bring them together.”
I think this is one of those films that was overlooked because of its contentious topic around the death penalty and because of its romance between two women. Even stars with the name power of Ellen Page and Kate Mara didn’t get it the attention it needed.
Well, it’s finally going to be possible to see it. We can then make up our own minds about whether or not this is a good, woman-directed film!
Also featured are Elias Koteas and Amy Seimetz. The film will be available on April 5.
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Not terribly impressed with the cut of the trailer, but I am still interested in seeing the film. Kate and Ellen have great chemistry together in general, so I am optimistic about them in this.
Both of them seem more interested in finding challenging material than in commercial success.
Which way more gratifying both for them and for us. That being said, I think they both deserve commercial success and it is unfortunate that there is so often a dichotomy between those two ideals.