The story of a nun who is assigned to be the spiritual advisor of a man who has only a short time to live before his execution. He has already been on death row for six years. He and another man have been convicted of the brutal murder of a couple out parking in the woods.
The dialogue is fantastic as Sister Helen has meaningful discussions with not only our 'dead man' Matthew Poncelet, but also his family and the families of the victims involved. The film builds in intensity until unleashing a stunning and gripping conclusion that left me deeply moved. It's also an educational piece on the lethal injection process, something most people would have no clue about before viewing this film. Both Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn exhibit phenomenal acting from beginning to end. You can see real emotion in their faces and movements especially towards the end. There's not one moment in the film that feels unnecessary, not one moment in the film that seems contrived. Everything feels real and the direction (from Tim Robbins, who played the main character in The Shawshank Redemption only a year earlier) attests to its greatness.
It's a bit of casting cleverness that Scott Wilson - who played one of the two killers in 1967's "In Cold Blood" - is playing a chaplain here.
A couple of points - Matt starts out manipulative with Prejean even trying some pedestrian jail house come on initially, but she lets him know where things stand right off the bat. I wonder if he would have ever taken responsibility for what he did and admitted his crimes to Sister Prejean if he was not about to be executed. Bravado seems to be a big part of his identity. He ultimately admits he would not have been in the woods doing what he did to get to death row if he had the courage to stand up to his crazy companion and just walk away.
And this is the thing about these kinds of cases, the individual is on trial, but often it is two people together each of whom can't back down in the presence of the other who do the most gruesome crimes. It really is the bad company they choose and poor impulse control when free to make those choices that leads to their downfall. Some call it the synergy of evil.
The dialogue is fantastic as Sister Helen has meaningful discussions with not only our 'dead man' Matthew Poncelet, but also his family and the families of the victims involved. The film builds in intensity until unleashing a stunning and gripping conclusion that left me deeply moved. It's also an educational piece on the lethal injection process, something most people would have no clue about before viewing this film. Both Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn exhibit phenomenal acting from beginning to end. You can see real emotion in their faces and movements especially towards the end. There's not one moment in the film that feels unnecessary, not one moment in the film that seems contrived. Everything feels real and the direction (from Tim Robbins, who played the main character in The Shawshank Redemption only a year earlier) attests to its greatness.
It's a bit of casting cleverness that Scott Wilson - who played one of the two killers in 1967's "In Cold Blood" - is playing a chaplain here.
A couple of points - Matt starts out manipulative with Prejean even trying some pedestrian jail house come on initially, but she lets him know where things stand right off the bat. I wonder if he would have ever taken responsibility for what he did and admitted his crimes to Sister Prejean if he was not about to be executed. Bravado seems to be a big part of his identity. He ultimately admits he would not have been in the woods doing what he did to get to death row if he had the courage to stand up to his crazy companion and just walk away.
And this is the thing about these kinds of cases, the individual is on trial, but often it is two people together each of whom can't back down in the presence of the other who do the most gruesome crimes. It really is the bad company they choose and poor impulse control when free to make those choices that leads to their downfall. Some call it the synergy of evil.