Mercy Review | Mitul Patel’s Debut Indie Gracefully Portrays A Delicate Dance Between Life And Death

Lately, many films have begun to quietly circle around the fragility of an ailing parent and the complicated, often unspoken distances within families. Most recently, Jeejivisha Kale’s Tighee (2026) sensitively dealt with the right to live as well as choose a dignified death on one’s own terms. An upcoming fiction film September 21 directed by Karen Kshiti Suvarna also aims to empathise with the journey of caregivers and those struggling with Alzheimer’s. The taboo around subjects like end-of-life care, assisted death or passive euthanasia, especially when religion becomes the lens, makes up for a spiked cocktail of conflicts. This is exactly what makes Mercy (2026), an ambitious indie, stand out.

At its heart, the film seeks to open up a deeply human conversation—what happens when the beliefs and values we’ve held onto for a lifetime are shaken, especially in the face of a loved one standing so vulnerably at the threshold between life and death. What makes the film interesting is its Christian lens on the concept of wilful death and how/if religion is able to bend itself to accommodate compassion. 

Coming from debut director Mitul Patel, who made this film at the age of 21, Mercy centres two brothers Shekhar (Raj Vasudeva) and Vihaan (Kunal Bhan), who are raised by Sujata (Aparna Ghoshal), their widowed mother. As a church-going family, this trio is empowered through life with songs written by the departed father. Heart-tugging visuals of young Vihaan gently swaying in his cradle, wrapped in the soft cadence of his father’s lyrics, create a sense of quiet warmth and watchful protection. In that same moment, Sujata sways in the kitchen listening to it. Its deeply metaphorical writing is a reminder of life’s fleeting nature—of choosing joy and finding the courage to keep moving forward.

Vihaan, the sensitive yet rebellious brother, grows up wanting to be a musician. Shekhar, shaped by an early encounter with loss, becomes a realist and a “fixer”, determined to sustain a sense of order and normalcy no matter what. While the childhood flashbacks offer some context for who Shekhar is and why he behaves the way he does, they end up spoon-feeding the audience. After losing a dog and watching it be euthanised, this single incident is treated as his most defining memory. Personally, the film works just fine without this emphasis. Its internal logic holds, especially through the loss of his father at a young age, making the additional backstory feel unnecessary.

In Mercy, the father is never seen beyond photographs; yet his presence is everywhere, etched into the everyday lives of this family. In their own ways, both brothers are trying to keep him alive. Vihaan reaches for him through the intangible—through music, memory and legacy. Shekhar, who is now married to Jiya (Niharica Raizada) and about to be a father, is conflicted and terrified of fatherhood with no blueprint to follow. His inability to accept the loss and unpreparedness becomes apparent as he clings to the tangible, repairing his father’s old boombox and video camera, holding onto objects as if they might anchor what has already slipped away. These divergent ways of thinking become the crux of how they further process their ailing mother’s fragile condition. 

The film moves through minimal locations, mainly the family home and the hospital. As Sujata suffers an injury and becomes bedridden, her jolly persona starts to dim. She is increasingly unable to move or emote, leaving the family to question if this is the life she would want for herself. Their lives as caregivers become increasingly monotonous and complicated as interpersonal issues rise to the surface.

It only seems fair that in such a situation, a terrified Shekhar would seek a father-figure to guide him through this difficult time. But here father comes with a capital F—Father Joel (Adil Hussain) has been an anchor in their lives since he was young. As the Christmas bells toll and the streets are filled with fairy-lights, Shekhar sits beside Father Joel, seeking clarity on whether to hold on or let go. At times, the film turns noticeably preachy, placing too much emphasis on delivering its life lessons. In doing so, it begins to overshadow the very real anxieties the characters are grappling with in those moments.

As a saint with a wise cadence in his voice, Hussain lends the film a grounding presence, guiding Shekhar back to himself through a story. This parallel thread becomes one of Mercy’s strongest elements, peeling back the often-unspoken realities of caregiving—where devotion coexists with a slow, simmering resentment. Through Jenny (Gauri Verma), a paralysis patient, we see Kevin (Shan Gandhi) surrender his entire life in service of her needs. What begins as an act of love gradually erodes into something heavier, as their shared existence is stripped of joy and reduced to mere survival. In these moments, their side story often cuts deeper than the central narrative.

Some may argue that the film’s storytelling is too simple, even overly direct. There is some truth to that, yet it doesn’t take away much. Although, the film suffers from a symptom of its core premise far outweighing its execution. For a work so earnest in its intentions and so resolute in upholding the dignity of life and death, its execution mistrusts the audience’s capacity for inference. This insistence on spelling out every metaphor and emotional cue becomes excessive and intermittently disruptive. The repeated barrage of visual motifs, including photo frames, abrupt flashbacks that leap from childhood to adulthood with an almost didactic insistence of “look here, this signifies something profound”, ultimately constrains the film’s expressive power. 

Performances by Vasudeva, Bhan and Ghoshal work quite well wherein they’re on-screen together. The playfulness, the intermittent tensions and subtle acts of care emerge realistically. Raizada, too, offers a compelling portrayal of the expectant mother as she navigates the quiet anguish of an emotionally distant husband, caring for her mother-in-law and the pervasive instability that shadows her future. Interesting characters with potential, like Krishna (Sarthak Joshi), the jolly beggar Shekhar encounters, are reduced to functional devices mainly to guide the protagonist toward his eventual decision.

The soundtrack by Kingshuk Chakravarty and Mayank Chaudhary lends the film a deeply visceral texture. Sonu Nigam’s evocative rendition of “Yaadon Ke Sahaare Chal”—the very song that once served as their father’s enduring reminder—imbues the film with an almost spectral poignancy. Meanwhile, compositions such as “Aazadiyaan” and “Naaraz” resonate deeply.

Under the assured hand of promising debut director Patel and supported by a finely tuned ensemble, the narrative moves briskly through its 90-minute runtime. Overall, Mercy manages to attempt a well-intentioned story on a difficult subject like passive euthanasia with substantial grace.