''Oh Mercy!'' (french: Roubaix, une lumière, lit=Roubaix, a light) is a 2019 French

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

Arnaud Desplechin Arnaud Desplechin (; born 31 October 1960) is a French film director and screenwriter. In 2016, he won the César Award for Best Director for ''My Golden Days'' (2015). Life and career Desplechin was born in Roubaix. He is the son of Robert and ...

. The film was inspired by the 2008 TV documentary ''Roubaix, commissariat central'', directed by Mosco Boucault. It stars

Roschdy Zem Roschdy Zem (born 27 September 1965) is a French actor and filmmaker of Moroccan descent. He shared the award for Best Actor for his role in the film '' Days of Glory'' at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Career Versatile and determined to not ...

Léa Seydoux Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne (; born 1 July 1985) is a French actor. Known for her roles in both French cinema and in Hollywood she's received various accolades including the Cannes Film Festival's Trophée Chopard in 2009 as wel ...

Sara Forestier Sara Forestier (born 4 October 1986) is a French actress, film director and screenwriter. Life and career Forestier began her film career in 2001. She received a César Award for Most Promising Actress for her performance in '' Games of Love and ...

, and

Antoine Reinartz Antoine Reinartz (; born 1985) is a French actor. Theater Selected filmography References External links * 1985 births Living people French male film actors {{France-actor-stub ...

. It was selected to compete for the

Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...

at the

2019 Cannes Film Festival The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president. The Palme d'Or went to the South Korean film ''Parasite'', directed by Bong Joon-ho; Bong became t ...

Plot

One Christmas night in

Roubaix Roubaix ( or ; nl, Robaais; vls, Roboais) is a city in northern France, located in the Lille metropolitan area on the Belgian border. It is a historically mono-industrial commune in the Nord department, which grew rapidly in the 19th century ...

, the local police chief Daoud, and Louis, a fresh recruit, are confronted with the violent murder of an elderly woman. The victim's two young, female neighbours, Claude and Marie, are arrested.

Cast

Release

The film had its world premiere in the Competition section at the

on 22 May 2019. It was released in France on 21 August 2019.

Reception

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". David Ehrlich of ''

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...

'' gave the film a grade of C−, writing, "Forestier and Seydoux are both fantastically desperate as dead end citizens who met each other at a very dangerous time in their lives, but Desplechin fails to make full use of his actors; instead of allowing them to shade in their characters, he pummels the audience into an ambiguous state of forced sympathy." Chuck Bowen of '' Slant Magazine'' gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, commenting that "The film's master image is among the greatest images of Desplechin's career: the women, recreating their strangulation of the victim for the police, briefly hold their hands together under the victim's pillow."

Accolades

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Oh Mercy! 2019 films 2019 crime drama films 2010s French-language films French crime drama films Films directed by Arnaud Desplechin Films with screenplays by Arnaud Desplechin 2010s French films Le Pacte films