Movie Nation by Roger Moore

It’s one of those limited-release films that few will see, with acting so compact and contained that everyone who loves great screen performances should. Weisz, Firth and Thewlis give us understated, unfussy performances that lift The Mercy, a wonderfully tragic story with a hint of magnificence about it.

Total Film by Matt Maytum

Firth is terrific in an unbelievable-but-true tale that charts a course from the ridiculous to the profound.

Empire by Andrew Lowry

Despite the hint of a stiff-upper-lip kind of reserve, this is astonishingly brutal. And Firth’s performance makes this dark, dark story land.

Time Out by Dave Calhoun

It’s no heroic tale; ‘The Mercy’ is thoughtful, uncomfortable viewing.

The Playlist by Warren Cantrell

Intriguing, tragic, and 100% relatable, “The Mercy” is a gripping look at man’s struggle to achieve greatness at all costs and has a lot to say about what those consequences entail when the receipts are tallied.

Arizona Republic by Kerry Lengel

Firth remains in low gear throughout his character’s transition from fuzzy dreamer to desperate schemer to mad transcendental poet. It takes a bit of voiceover to get the job done, but Firth’s steadfast refusal to chew scenery turns out to be the key to his performance

Variety by Guy Lodge

Directed with even-keeled intelligence by James Marsh, and buoyed by a performance of customary reserve and resolve from Colin Firth, The Mercy tells its story...about as well as it can be told. Yet there’s no denying it’s a muted, disconsolate affair, one that by necessity shrinks before viewers’ eyes into something less rousing and noble than what they were initially promised.

L.A. Weekly by Alan Scherstuhl

Firth is all panicked reserve in the role of Crowhurst, and Rachel Weisz invests the familiar stay-at-home role with antsy, agonized spirit as the wife of the doomed man, facing the truth that her family’s lives will never be what they once were.

The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak

Maybe The Mercy‘s greatest strength is that pragmatism to fuel its eleventh-hour chastisement of anyone blind to Hallworth’s complicity.

CineVue by Joe Walsh

Marsh has crafted a compelling film, yet for all the fine performances and intriguing subject matter it is never quite compelling.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by Bilge Ebiri

I walked away from this picture both moved and confused. Because it’s got Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz in top form, The Mercy nails the emotion, but comes up somewhat short as a narrative.

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

In prioritizing Crowhurst’s psychological frailty over his physical challenges (both conveyed more evocatively in the excellent 2007 documentary “Deep Water”), Firth and his director find something quietly touching, even soulful, in the character’s wretchedness. In this somber tragedy, the real demons are never anywhere but right inside that boat.

Screen Daily by Kim Newman

The later stretches, which are forced to become oblique and symbolic in the absence of any hard evidence about what really happened to the sailor, showcase some of Firth’s best screen work.

Screen International by Kim Newman

The later stretches, which are forced to become oblique and symbolic in the absence of any hard evidence about what really happened to the sailor, showcase some of Firth’s best screen work.

The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton

This unresolved maritime mystery feels oddly flat and functional, diluting a tragic tale full of unanswered questions into an anodyne middlebrow weepie.