I realize that Clemency won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize at Sundance last January, but how did Alfre Woodard‘s Bernadine Williams, a death-row prison warden, get the job in the first place if she’s the emotionally conflicted type? Don’t prison bureaus usually hire flinty hard-asses for a job like this? People who aren’t inclined to entertain second thoughts as a rule?

Supervising the execution of condemned inmates is not something that most people would want to do. Or could do. Or should do.

I’ll be seeing Clemency sometimes soon, although I don’t like death-row row dramas as a rule. They creep me out. I squirmed through Dead Man Walking, and I hated The Green Mile.

Clemency is being released by Neon on 12.27.19.