Film review: ‘THE FORGIVEN’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
The dark, erudite, acerbic, if somewhat repetitive drama, The Forgiven, is a confronting story of guilt, vengeance and the clash of western and middle eastern cultures.
Ralph Fiennes plays the bitterly cynical alcoholic doctor, David Henninger who, along with American wife Jo (Jessica Chastain), finds himself in a twisting moral dilemma. While driving to an extravagant party at rich, eccentric friend Richard’s (Matt Smith) palatial digs in the Sahara Desert, in Morocco, the couple hit and kill Driss (Omar Ghazaoui), a teenage boy from the local Berber people. Thinking police indifference to this tragedy has left them in the clear, the couple are alarmed to find the boy’s distraught, grieving father, Abdellah (Ismael Kanater) turn up at Richard’s villa looking for the people responsible for his son’s death. When David is offered what may be either a chance for atonement or a life-threatening journey into the desert with Abdellah, he is advised to comply. Meanwhile, Jo sees a chance in David’s absence, to indulge all that Richard’s oasis of western privilege in the harsh desert has to offer.
The film has echoes of Patricia Highsmith in its cutting examination of arrogant, wealthy westerners who think they’re above the people whose land they’re currently inhabiting. It also recalls a myriad of European films set at bourgeois dinner parties and takedowns of upper middle-class values like Louis Bunuel’s Exterminating Angel.
It might be argued that McDonagh has a bit too much fun with the debauched revelry at Richard’s fiesta when he should be skewering it mercilessly but doing so would likely have turned this film into a more simplistic and stereotypical story of ‘west vs east’. Also, the frenetic indulgence depicted in the party scenes give this film an appealingly weird energy.
The top-drawer cast is excellent here with Fiennes at first seemingly nihilistic in his contempt for everything except a tumbler of scotch but slowly revealing a more complex character. Chastain gives a convincing and layered performance mixing moralising righteousness toward David with a gleefully decadent side. Matt smith is typically wonderful giving louche aristocrat and impish provocateur, Richard an acid-tongued wit but also a world-weary sensibility and intellect. As Abdellah the brooding father, Ismael Kanater has a kind of rugged dignity but is clearly someone not to be messed with.
Director John Michael McDonagh (The Guard, Calvary) and cinematographer Larry Smith (Eyes Wide Shut) conjure some remarkable vistas of the Mars-like Sahara desertscape. These images make a bizarre and striking contrast with the scenes at Richard’s orgiastic party.
While the plot of this film is somewhat limited it never feels padded. More than a driving linear narrative, this film is about mood and character with each scene building like a mosaic. While some viewers may feel alienated from this tale of indulgent and mostly contemptible people, many will find it intoxicating.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama.
Classification: MA15+
Director(s): Martin McDonagh.
Release date: 28th July 2022.
Running time: 117 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.