The teasingly entwined ambiguities of love and death continue to fascinate Alain Guiraudie (STRANGER BY THE LAKE), who returns with a sharp, sinister, yet slyly funny thriller. Set in an autumnal, woodsy village in his native region of Occitanie, his latest follows the meandering exploits of Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), an out-of-work baker who has drifted back to his hometown after the death of his beloved former boss, a bakery owner. Staying long after the funeral, the seemingly benign Jérémie begins to casually insinuate himself into his mentor’s family, including his kind-hearted widow (Catherine Frot) and venomously angry son (Jean-Baptiste Durand), while making an increasingly surprising — and ultimately beneficial — friendship with an oddly cheerful local priest (Jacques Develay). In Guiraudie’s quietly carnal world, violence and eroticism explode with little anticipation, and criminal behavior can seem like a natural extension of physical desire. The French director is at the top of his game in MISERICORDIA, again upending all genre expectations.
“Eschews the risible Hollywood practice of cross-cutting and is able to generate suspense purely through his mise-en-scène and the actor’s performances. This is rigorous filmmaking of the highest order, controlled and precise to the exclusion of anything extraneous — evidenced by its taut 100-minute runtime” —Ankit Jhunjhunwala, The Playlist
“MISERICORDIA,...between the absurdist gags about sexuality and the sardonic sideswipes at religious hypocrisy, does not follow a fish attempting to swim in unfamiliar waters, nor even an out-of-towner cat set loose amongst the local pigeons. Instead it’s a slippery, changeable parable about a particularly amoral cuckoo looking to feather a new nest.” —Jessica Kiang, Variety
“MISERICORDIA is neither a dirge nor a lofty symposium. Strange as it may be to say for a story that begins with a burial and then shatters after a heinous death, this is a supremely and surprisingly funny film, where humor gradually accrues a subversiveness not unlike desire’s own.” —Leonardo Goi, Film Stage
“Shot by the talented PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE cinematographer Claire Mathon, this is a beautiful-looking film, overcast and autumnal; it comes alive at night but limns dusk and dawn as well with a sense of secret possibility…. Guiraudie derives both comedy and tragedy from closeted compulsions and the communal silence in which his characters conceal their enactments.” —Isaac Feldberg, rogerebert.com