51
Metascore
9 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Slant MagazineChuck BowenSlant MagazineChuck BowenArnaud Desplechin evinces a glancing touch with showing how social tension and need inform law and crime.
- 70Screen DailyLee MarshallScreen DailyLee MarshallRambling 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.
- 67The PlaylistBradley WarrenThe PlaylistBradley WarrenAs a policier, Oh Mercy! is an affectionate homage to crime cinema but also an engaging variation on the genre’s tropes.
- 67The A.V. ClubA.A. DowdThe A.V. ClubA.A. DowdThe 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.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijThe Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijThere'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.
- 50VarietyJay WeissbergVarietyJay WeissbergAlthough 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.
- 42IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichForestier 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.
- 40CineVueMartyn ConterioCineVueMartyn ConterioSome actors can play anything, but asking super-posh and glamourous Seydoux to play dirt poor is an ask too far.
- 40The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawIt is a drama that attempts to behave like a tough police procedural in a quasi-Melville vein, but also like a musing prose-poem about the vanity of human wishes.