DIRECTOR: John Michael McDonagh
CAST: Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Matt Smith, Ismael Kanater, Caleb Landry Jones, Saïd Taghmaoui, Christopher Abbott, Abbey Lee, Mourad Zaoui, Marie-Josée Croze, Alex Jennings
RUNNING TIME: 117 mins
CERTIFICATE: 18
BASICALLY…: A wealthy couple (Fiennes and Chastain) becomes involved in a tragic accident…
NOW FOR THE REVIEW…
John Michael McDonagh’s fourth feature as writer and director, The Forgiven, is… odd. It’s certainly far from great, or even that good, and at the same time it’s not awful, or even that bad. It is, instead, a weird experience where at practically all times you are simply confused as to what you’re supposed to feel, and what you’re meant to take away from it all.
Maybe that’s the whole point, because much like his similarly acclaimed brother Martin, McDonagh has made a career out of idiosyncratic, darkly comedic tales laced with irony and pathos (especially his stand-out second feature Calvary), and The Forgiven doesn’t fall far from that tree. However, the difference between this and something like Calvary is that the previous movie at least had something valuable to say, and said it in a way that felt both unique and genuine. This, on the other hand, feels a lot more vacuous and indulgent, with nary a sign of any meaningful point in sight, and as a result it just leaves you with a weirdly uncomfortable feeling inside that feels rougher than anything this filmmaker has yet done.
The film opens in a way which hardly anyone would expect in a modern-day film of any type: all of the credits, from the best boys and location managers right up to the lead actors, roll before the title even pops up, in a clear attempt to emulate the long-extinct style of opening credits that died out around the 1970s (as for the end, it literally only says “The End” before ending entirely). As a throwback style, it’s honestly cool to see in modern-day cinema; unfortunately, it will prove to be one of the more interesting elements of The Forgiven itself.
As these credits roll, we are introduced to married couple David (Ralph Fiennes) and Jo (Jessica Chastain), who are en route to a lavish mansion in the middle of the Moroccan desert, where their friend Richard (Matt Smith) is hosting a weekend-long party of debauchery for a host of wealthy guests. David, a doctor and functioning alcoholic, and Jo, a former children’s book writer who’s hardly written a word in years, are clearly unhappy with each other, which becomes even more apparent when they run over and kill a young local. With the police mostly uninterested in investigating the accidental death further (possibly due to the wealth and power of their friends), the largely remorseless David and Jo attempt to enjoy their weekend, until the young victim’s father Abdellah (Ismael Kanater) shows up to not only demand his son’s body, but that David accompany him and his men across the desert to attend the burial.
Like a rather hefty amount of movies already this year, The Forgiven aims most of its satire at the obscene wealth and privilege of the pretentious upper-class. Guests at this mansion, which include aging playboys, gay lovers, philanthropic filmmakers and coked-out party girls, frequently indulge in food, drink, drugs and lavish trips to nearby watering holes, all while being waited upon hand and foot by silently sneering Moroccan staff. Their conversations with one another are crass, racist, homophobic, and just downright nasty, as they all fully embrace the extravagances that life has given them. These are all supposed to be people that we are meant to dislike from the very start, including central couple David and Jo who are themselves pretty horrible people who happen to be surrounded by equally horrible people, but what makes the film feel so odd is that McDonagh never seems to commit to giving any of them a reasonable sense of comeuppance. Throughout most of the film, we are forced to watch these terrible people, cloaked by their indulgent wealth, do and say vile things that almost make you anxious for the bubble to finally burst. However, it never does, with hardly anything of consequence happening to these people, and by the end most of them get away completely scot-free. If this is meant to be McDonagh’s skewering of the rich elite, then he barely follows through with the initial spearing, and instead leaves it to linger in almost a celebratory sense this side of The Wolf of Wall Street.
Because it so rarely follows through with its multi-targeted satire, The Forgiven just ends up feeling like an odd bore of a movie. Making it especially strange is how you can still clearly spot McDonagh’s talent for sharp dialogue being put to ineffective use in a film that cannot even decide what kind of tone it wants to embrace. Is it a dark comedy? A morality play? Or even a tragic drama? Unfortunately, it’s all three of these things at once, leaving you unsure whether to laugh, cry, or even think about the stuff happening in front of you, which McDonagh has certainly been able to accomplish before (again, Calvary is a great example of this) but for whatever reason cannot strike the iron here, even when said iron is as hot as the surrounding Moroccan desert. His actors tend to struggle with finding the right tone as a result, with many of them feeling like they’ve come from completely different movies: Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain seem to have come right out of a melancholic relationship drama, but when placed next to Matt Smith and Caleb Landry Jones as a flamboyant couple, or even Abbey Lee who’s constantly one line of cocaine away from starring in her own 80s shenanigans comedy, you start to sense that all of these acting choices do not fit well together, no matter how engaged the performances may be.
Directionless in its own messaging and identity, The Forgiven is a missed opportunity for a clearly talented filmmaker to really address his core issues with as much intelligence and complexity as his previous films, and feels far too idiosyncratic for its own good. It is McDonagh’s weakest film to date, because there is something so empty and vacuous in how it attempts to be smart and impactful, but by failing to follow through on its own satire, it rarely feels like it even has a reason for existing. Oh well, at least the other McDonagh brother has The Banshees of Inisherin coming out next month.
SO, TO SUM UP…
The Forgiven is an oddly directionless attempt to satire the wealthy elite and their callous actions, but by rarely following through with its own messages and morals, the resulting lack of real consequences leaves it feeling just as vacuous and callous as its loathsome collection of characters, and without anything substantial to say about its intended, if overly obvious, targets.
