Film Review: REBEL NUN
by Karen Pecota

Dominic Sivyer | United States, United Kingdom | 2024

Filmmaker Dominic Sivyer directs a feature documentary about Sister Helen Prejean, who is a renowned Catholic nun, a best-selling author, and America’s leading activist fighting to eradicate the death penalty in REBEL NUN.

Sister Helen gives a firsthand account of her experience with the death penalty, in her 1993 book Dead Man Walking. Her storyhas been adapted, performed, and received critical acclaim on various artistic platforms, just to name a few: the 1996 Oscar-winning film, directed by Tim Robbins, staring actors Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn; an opera most recently performed in the 2023-2024 season of the Metropolitan Opera; and a play for high schools and colleges, under the same name, Dead Man Walking.

Now in her mid-eighties, Sivyer gives Sister Helen and those closest to her, an opportunity to share details of a six-decade journey to accompany prison inmates on death row—witnessing seven executions. Sister Helen continued to fight and petition on the behalf of each of these men for justice to be served only to be rejected at every attempt. In spite of so much rejection, Sister Helen cared to fight for each man’s cause—innocent or not— because she knows that real freedom comes from forgiveness and hope.

In the introduction section of her book, Sister Helen shares, “I’ve heard that there are two situations that make interesting stories: when an extraordinary person is plunged into the commonplace and when an ordinary person gets involved in extraordinary events. I’m definitely an example of the latter.” Continuing, “I stepped quite unsuspectingly from a protected middle-class environment into one of the most explosive and complex moral issues of our day, the question of capital punishment.”

Sister Helen is more determined than ever to see reform come to end the death penalty. Currently she is trying to save Richard Glossip, who is on death row at Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Sivyer explains, “Over the past twenty-five years Richard Glossip has had nine executions dates and three last meals but as a result of Sister Helen’s campaigning his execution has been halted by the Supreme Court who will hear his case later in 2024, paving the way for a new trial.” Glossip’s story has received world-wide attention and is controversial on several counts.

Sister Helen’s fight to help Glossip is at the core of Sivyer’s REBEL NUN; and possibly the last chance for a two-fold reckoning: Glossip’s freedom, and Sister Helen’s ability to save one life.