Juror #2 could not have come out at a stranger time in world events towards the end of 2024. As a director, Clint Eastwood’s interests have been captured by the contradictions of life and justice in the United States: there are often clear-cut guilty and innocent parties, but who prevails in the end is not so straightforward. His storytelling is small-c conservative ethos, wary of authority and institution but also aware that individuals cannot wholly be trusted, and Juror #2 feels compellingly old-fashioned as a result. The result is imperfect, like its characters, but sticks in the mind.
Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) finds himself called for jury duty at a very inconvenient time; his wife Ally (Zoey Deutch) is approaching the due date of a high-risk pregnancy; their struggles with fertility led the alcoholic Justin to a bar exactly one year ago – though crucially, he did not have a drink. Despite his personal circumstances, he cannot get excused and finds himself – as the titular second juror – deciding a possible case of domestic violence and murder.
Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) was found dead in a creekbed under a bridge with blunt force trauma to the head; her boyfriend James Sythe (Gabriel Basso) is on trial as, witnesses testify, they had an explosive argument the night she went missing. In a campaign to become district attorney, lawyer Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) launches a ruthless attack against Sythe, determined to champion herself as a protector of women; she knows she is not necessarily a likeable public figure and decides to lean into the merciless, power-suited image.
But once already sworn in Justin finds himself compromised in a way he had not foreseen; leaving the bar that fateful night, he witnesses a fighting couple and when driving home struck something – or someone – around the place of the bridge. Thus, Juror #2 becomes less about the trial itself and more about one man’s inner turmoil to do the right thing or the convenient thing: save a likely innocent man and possibly send himself to prison, at a time when his wife needs him most, or say nothing and live with the guilt.
Juror #2 thus sets up a complicated premise and compromised (anti)hero, resting almost entirely on Hoult’s tremendous performance. Hoult can do big and showy – think Mad Max: Fury Road, The Favourite, and the cancelled-too-soon television hit The Great – but is equally at home in the quiet and understated. At times, Justin almost seems gormless, passing as a taciturn and slightly gullible man in over his head. Hoult and Eastwood play with these levels of knowing and hiding, suspicion and paranoia, to great effect. In a similar vein, it is clear the film likes Justin and expects viewers to like him; after all, he is a man doing his best and dealing with a few bad hands dealt by life. But sympathy is no excuse in itself, and Juror #2 is too canny a film to chalk up Justin’s crime – and cowardice – as purely his mistakes or accidents of fate. He is culpable, and how he forges a life forward and towards Sythe’s verdict is designed to spark debate.
The subtleties and moral complexities of Juror #2 in relation to its central character, however, do not quite extend to the rest of the cast or the scenario. Killebrew could be a one-dimensional, ball-breaking, “strong” woman were it not for Collette’s deft performance, letting cracks of doubt in as she questions her motives and learns more about the humans whose lives she affects. Jurors #1 and #3-12 are more thinly sketched out and largely fall into “types” representing segments of modern US society.
The treatment of the two Black characters of Juror #2 are the most puzzling and egregious misstep. They are the ones on the jury who are most vociferously pushing for a guilty verdict and least willing to show mercy or doubt; it is an odd reading that feels at worst racist and at best Eastwood attempting to over-correct or avoid conversations about any (justified) skepticism nonwhite communities might have towards the police and justice systems. Similarly, the young characters are given some canned lines about Sythe being “abusive” in behaviour if not in action, making them caricatures of the social justice warrior young left. It might be Eastwood showing his age and simplifying Gen-Z to its greatest stereotype, seeing domestic abuse in a black-and-white way that suggests all bad behaviour can or should be legally punished.
All this said, dismissing Juror #2 for its simplicities and “boomer” readings disregards the film’s complexities and nuances, and Eastwood’s flawed exploration of a man hoist by a heady mix of his own hubris and cowardice. Juror #2 has all the credentials of a prestige courtroom drama for excellent holiday family viewing but enough meat to chew on to spark a good discussion after the credits roll. While its interest in its subjects and moral dilemmas may not be wholly backed up by its execution, it is a thought-provoking picture much more interested in petty human failures than it is in clear-cut heroism. The little lies we tell each other – and ourselves – to make our lives a little easier, consequences be damned for the rest, may be the real soul-killers.
Juror #2 is now available to stream or purchase at your retailer of choice.
Learn more about the film, including how to watch, at the official site for the title.
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