Synopsis
A police chief in northern France tries to solve a case where an old woman was brutally murdered on Christmas Eve. However, in a neighborhood rife with crime, everyone seems to be a suspect.
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Cast
- Léa SeydouxClaude
- Sara ForestierMarie
- Roschdy ZemDaoud
- Antoine ReinartzLouis
- Sébastien DelbaereDescamps
- Elléonore LemattreNew Year's Eve Sister
- Roxane DubartNew Year's Eve Mother
- Antoni MignonShirtless Young Man
- Christophe HennartNew Year's Eve Neighbor
- Christophe FilbienSimon
Recommendations
- 75
Slant Magazine
Arnaud Desplechin evinces a glancing touch with showing how social tension and need inform law and crime. - 70
Screen Daily
Rambling but strangely compelling, Oh Mercy!’s documentary bedrock gives the investigation at the heart of the film a real authenticity. From around its midpoint, this uneven film becomes a riveting, compassionate interrogation drama. - 67
The Playlist
As a policier, Oh Mercy! is an affectionate homage to crime cinema but also an engaging variation on the genre’s tropes. - 67
The A.V. Club
The only real gravitas comes from the reliably excellent Zem, here doing minor wonders with the clichéd role of the good-hearted, unwaveringly calm human lie detector. - 50
The Hollywood Reporter
There's little in terms of the tension associated with police thrillers, but it's also not a socio-realist drama or a character study, instead echoing parts of these genres at different times so there's a constant sense of deja vu and reminders of other, better films without the material ever really coming into its own. - 50
Variety
Although Desplechin claims his main interest is to get inside the two women’s characters, pushing away moral absolutes about guilt and innocence (yes, “Crime and Punishment” is a key influence), the couple come off as the least interesting people on screen. - 42
IndieWire
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. - 40
CineVue
Some actors can play anything, but asking super-posh and glamourous Seydoux to play dirt poor is an ask too far.
