Justice takes time…

Murder To Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story admittedly doesn’t deviate too far away from what you’d expect out of a true crime documentary, but it’s a story that needed to not only be told but heard as we see the long path towards an ultimate correction towards justice for someone who was even more of a victim then she was a criminal.

In 2004, 16-year-old Cyntoia Denise Brown was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, for murdering a 43-year-old man who picked her up for sex. She was tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison — Cyntoia’s fate seemed sealed. The film shows the complexity of a child who was the product of three generations of violence against women in her biological family and how in 2019, after nearly 10 years of legal challenges, Governor Bill Haslam granted her request for clemency. He did so following a slow shift in the state for legislative change in juvenile sentencing laws and having seen evidence of her maturity, education, and good behavior as a prisoner.

Ultimately a film about the journey and not the destination; Murder To Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story gives us an honest look at a very complex subject.  There’s no denying that she’s guilty of the crime that she committed, but the situations that got her there set her down this very dark path.

Director Daniel H Birman uses the situation and the crime as the subject as much as Brown herself.  It’s got a very cold style to it all, but it’s informative.  This isn’t a film that is really designed to get us to sympathize with its primary subject but rather to get us to look at the sad nature of the circumstances that led to the crime.  It carefully tracks the letter of the law, its initial failures and the long road that it took to get the laws updated to the nature of the crime along with the cold realities of how systemic abuse throughout generations can affect people in ways they don’t even realize.

Birman never gives us a soft touch and the nature of the crime is on full display, but it’s about the crime that she committed and the crimes that we’re committed against the defenceless young woman who just never had a chance to pull herself out of the world that she was born in.  It’s a long road but a fascinating one as getting to go through this entire process from conviction to the ultimate commuting of most of her sentence was actually incredibly interesting.  We not only get to see the law evolve over time, but we see the evolution of a young woman that society forgot and neglected as she transformed herself into a valuable member of society out of circumstances that most simply don’t over come.

Murder To Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story avoids any maudlin and overt storytelling tropes and allows the facts to shine through and reminds us that even in the direst of circumstances, a little hard work and hope can ultimately pay real dividends.