Continuing our regular series of posts about New Releases that may be of interest to our audience. Take a look at the trailer below and feel free to vote whether or not you would like to see this at the GCPH in 2021, when we are finally able to come together again for regular film screenings.
Just Mercy (2019)
Dir: Destin Daniel Cretton
A crusading biopic about Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan), a Harvard law graduate who in 1989 helps to found the Equal Justice Initiative with Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), which aimed to assist impoverished citizens to get quality legal representation they otherwise couldn’t afford. Meeting with death row inmates as part of his outreach on this project, Stevenson comes into contact with Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian (Jamie Foxx), an African-American man dubiously convicted of the murder of a white woman called Ronda Morrison back in 1986. It is his pursuit of this case that leads Stevenson down the rabbit hole of institutionalised racism, from the low-level corruption of the police investigating the murder, all the way to the political chicanery of the court that held McMillian’s trial. Featuring an incredibly powerful performance from Jamie Foxx as the death row inmate, this is an absorbing legal drama that feels thoroughly in tune with the present BLM moment. Director Destin Daniel Cretton was also responsible for the care home drama Short Term 12 (2013) that we have previously screened at the GCPH.
Grassmarket Community Picture House 