However high the stakes, the tone remains strangely equable 鈥� as in Alfred Hitchcock鈥檚 blackly comic The Trouble With Harry, another autumn movie, where vitality and morbidity are so interwoven it鈥檚 impossible to tell them apart.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 19, 2025

Aimlessness spontaneously dovetails into malfeasance in this aggressively weird offering from 鈥淪tranger by the Lake鈥� auteur Alain Guiraudie.

| May 12, 2025

What initially seems to be a reflection on mercy turns into a black comedy loaded with criticisms, or perhaps reflections, about religion, desire and lies. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | May 10, 2025

A well-baked character-driven story with deadpan humor and intrigue.

| Original Score: B+ | May 3, 2025

...Misericordia...reaffirms [Alain Guiraudie's] filmography, full of freedom and boldness. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2025

What Alain Guiraudie achieves [with Misericordia] is interesting and strange....The best advice is to watch it without biases. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 30, 2025

The script for Misericordia subtly weaves a web of drama, thriller, and dark humor that at times borders on the absurd. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 24, 2025

This twisty, ironical narrative didn鈥檛 impress me as much as it has some others, the characters鈥� irrational, under-motivated behavior making them somewhat less than engaging. But Misericordia is still offbeat and eventful enough to be worth a look.

| Apr 18, 2025

Misericordia may not be as floridly outrageous as its glossier cousin, Saltburn, but its earthy realism and refusal to meet genre expectations are arguably more subversive.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 17, 2025

Alain Guiraudie's queer thriller 'Misericordia' subverts its simple domestic setup with secrets, lies, and hidden desire.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 14, 2025

Voltaire once avowed: “God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.” In a Guiraudie offering, God’s creatures might not be doubling over with merriment, but you do sense that several are ready to spout a smile.

| Apr 12, 2025

Though it starts out slow, it becomes a galvanizing work by a master director that reminds us of film's unique power to challenge, disturb, and ultimately transform our understanding of what it means to be an imperfectly lustful human being.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 11, 2025

Misericordia feels like a big metaphysical shrug, sluggish to the point of lethargy.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 10, 2025

The cast finesses the material without a misstep as the pent-up townsfolk orbit around cryptic, magnetic J茅r茅mie, played by F茅lix Kysyl. P

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 8, 2025

It’s impossible to know everyone’s motivations, which makes the material so engrossing, as though Guiraudie invites us to understand despite admitting that most people’s desires are wholly irrational if undeniable.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 6, 2025

The mysteries that are harbored inside of the characters may be hard to pry out at first. But look again, and you can deduce more about what lies under the surface and then consider what it says about you.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 3, 2025

What makes 鈥淢isericordia鈥� truly resonate is that they never overshadow its deliciously depraved story, nor dilute the finely orchestrated tension his film maintains to keep your heart pounding as you take it all in.

| Apr 3, 2025

‘Misericordia’ has a wicked sense of humor that sneaks up on you. It’s an uneasy, pokerfaced kind of comedy that thrives on the viewer stewing in discomfort over the increasingly amoral twists.

| Apr 3, 2025

Guiraudie's regular cinematographer, Clare Mathon, endowed Misericordia with a stifling Bergman-esque atmosphere, its murky secret places redolent of J茅r茅mie's psyche.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 2, 2025

The plot is smart, expertly constructed and very effective. But once you know the points on the graph where all that unfolds, Guiraudie and his cast are able to do something nearly alchemical.

| Apr 2, 2025