by Hannah M

The 2019 film, Just Mercy, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton tells the audience a story about Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer centered in Alabama trying to help death row prisoners get free. The film focuses on the inmate Walter McMillian who, after many previous lawyers, has lost hope in ever leaving the fate that has befallen him. Even so, Bryan and his own organization, The Equal Justice Movement, don’t give up so easily. Even when Bryan meets up with the man who lies in every sentence out of his mouth, Ralph Meyers, we see that up until Walter is officially free, Bryan will never give up. It takes a court session with the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals for the truth to finally come to light. The themes within Cretton’s film are injustice, prejudice, hope, and resilience all the way to the end.

Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, Karan Kendrick, and C.J. LeBlanc in Just Mercy (2019), Source: IMDb

There are many symbols within the film. One in particular you can find in reference to the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. Both having similar themes of injustice and a character who is innocent of a crime despite the entire world thinking they’re guilty. Other symbols you can see are the jail cells and even the electric chair. It symbolizes the prisoners end and their deserved or undeserved punishment. But it also can go into the realm of fear and how each prisoner fears the day their time is to come. In the film, it shows how the men in prison due to them being in several different situations like poverty and having a poor education. We see men are the ones primarily in prison. That being said the justice system kind to anyone and unearths a lot of topics the film might imply but not directly.

Just Mercy does not shy away from displaying the wrongs in our justice system whether it is basing on the race of our characters or the genders. We see a good use of camera angles when Walter is held down on his cell’s bed. With a sense of defeat, Walter does not make any kind of movement before the guards all but pin him to the bed. We hear how demanding the officers are and by the end, Walter is there. He just lost his freedom all because of a continuous lie. On the other side of the film’s elements, there are our female characters. Comparing them to our male characters, they are more in a support role. They help out main protagonist get the information for the sake of the case but then stay home and hope. There is Minnie, for example. who fits the role. On the other hand, there is Eva who is indeed a support role for the film, she has a more important role for Bryan as his friend and co-worker.

Cretton showcases the reality of our justice system. By following Bryan throughout this important part of his life, we as an audience are able to see something that we normally wouldn’t. Even for the time actual time period of the film and for it being filmed in 2019, there is little difference in how the two showings of reality for gender and race are different. 2019 did indeed have progress in the realm of women’s rights, there is still a lot to do even in 2023. And with that, other films, like the mention of To Kill A Mocking Bird it shows how little our justice system has changed over the years and how little people themselves are willing to be more open and understanding.

Film reference: Just Mercy. (R). dir. Destin Daniel Cretton (2019); 136mins