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# FILM REVIEW: Mercy’s Girl
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/film-review-mercys-girl/
- Published: 2021-01-10T16:16:56.000Z
- Updated: 2021-01-10T12:51:07.000Z
- Description: Brian Butler is blown away by writer/director/actor Emily Lape’s tender love story
- Author: Brian Butler
- Tags: Arts, Reviews

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/u8lua-yk5jfrccx600400.png)](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/home/)

****Emily Lape has written, directed and starred in a low-budget , realistic and deeply moving story of young love between two women that is a joy to watch.**

Set in Chicago, its slow pace, and close up and personal style gives it a feel of documentary or at the very least improvised natural dialogue. Cinematographer **Justin Howe** provides long sweeping shots coupled with the most intimate of close-ups and his feel for the look of each scene is perfect.

Emily plays Mercy – an aimless, recovering alcoholic who isn’t recovering that much and whose chance meeting with a coffee shop assistant leads to a burgeoning romance that is both wonderfully observed in its minutiae and tenderly expressed .

**Alison Hixon** plays nursing student Jesse , who’s relaxed, energetic and out. Mercy on the contrary is closeted, self-destructive and saddled with a right-wing religious and phobic family.

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/alisonhixon-mercysgirl600.png)](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/home/)

It’s this tension that Emily explores and when Mercy makes a tragic drunken uncharacteristic mistake with a man in a restroom, her world implodes. The scene, which is effectively a brutal and violent rape, follows a major horrific breakdown between Mercy and her mother , who pulls no punches in her condemnation of her daughter’s lesbianism – leading as she sees it to damnation.

Shocking as these two scenes are , they’re followed by an unexpected reaction from the lovely Jesse. She’s clearly been bottling up anxiety about Mercy’s drinking and there’s no consideration by the trainee nurse about Mercy’s horrendous experience – she describes her partner as “ toxic “ and there are devastating results.

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/5741433_144034600.png)](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/home/)

It’s a complex analysis of a young life that is disintegrating, apparently saved by love but not so. The one thing Mercy doesn’t get is mercy – not from her mother and not from her loving girlfriend.

Emily says she’s done with acting and wants to direct more – this debut is a brilliant start to what may well turn out to be a fabulous career.

[**Mercy’s Girl is available on vimeo on demand**](https://vimeo.com/ondemand/mercysgirlfeaturefilm?ref=scenemag.co.uk)

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/mv5bndm5m2yzmde600.png)](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/home/)