The Forgiven
What happened to me with the film is that I could clearly see what it wanted to be, but it almost never managed to make me truly care. It has good actors, a powerful setting, an accident with moral weight and an obvious clash between Western privilege and someone else’s pain. On paper, everything should feel uncomfortable, poisonous and adult. Yet while watching it, I felt quite outside it. It did not seem like a disaster to me, but it did feel cold, unpleasant and less penetrating than it believes.
The premise has strength: a wealthy couple arrives at a mansion in the Moroccan desert after fatally running over a local young man. From there, the film divides the world into two very clear spaces. On one side, the party of rich Europeans and Americans, drunk, cynical and bored. On the other, the family of the dead boy, the land, grief, tradition and a dignity that contrasts with the frivolity of the guests. The idea is powerful, but the development does not always sustain it.
Ralph Fiennes is, by far, the best thing in it. His character is unpleasant, classist, dry, selfish and almost proud of his own rot, but the actor manages to make him more than just a hateful puppet. There is tiredness, fear, contempt, guilt and a kind of moral emptiness that slowly begins to crack. The film improves whenever it stays with him on the journey, away from the party, forced to look at something he would rather turn into a mere procedure. Fiennes gives nuance to someone who, in worse hands, would have been only a rich bastard learning a lesson.
Jessica Chastain is also good, although her character felt more diffuse to me. She has presence, intelligence and that air of a woman caught between exhaustion, cynicism and survival inside a rotten marriage. But the film never quite makes her as interesting as she could be. There is a broken marital story, desire, contempt, boredom and resentment, but too often everything remains in sharp lines and tired looks. You can sense a richer film inside that relationship, but it does not always emerge.
The party section should be devastating, and to me it felt too caricatured. I understand the intention: to show a repulsive, banal elite, intoxicated by privilege, unable to register the gravity of a death because they experience everything as decoration, anecdote or logistical nuisance. But the characters are so unpleasant from the beginning that the satire loses its edge. There is no discovery, no fall, no surprise. They are horrible, speak horribly and the film seems satisfied with underlining it again and again. At times, rather than disturbing me, it tired me.
I also found it hard to enter the tone. It wants to be a moral drama, dry thriller, class satire, colonial portrait, black comedy and journey of expiation. That mixture could have been very interesting, but it felt uneven to me. There are well-written moments, beautiful desert images and a latent tension that works in some scenes, but also a sense of stillness, of a film posing too much. Everything seems calculated to appear adult, uncomfortable and literary, but it does not always breathe. Sometimes I admired the wrapping more than I felt the blow.
The subject of privilege also felt too obvious to me. I do not doubt the good intentions or intelligence of the proposal, but many ideas arrive already chewed: the rich are monstrously frivolous, the locals carry dignity and pain, Western guilt needs a ritual, money tries to cover everything. These are interesting conflicts, yes, but the film does not always find a new or emotionally strong way to express them. I had the impression that it wanted to say important things without revealing much to me.
Even so, not everything seems failed to me. There is a final stretch that leaves a better impression than some earlier passages, precisely because it becomes more sober and less dependent on the party. When Fiennes’s character faces the consequences, when the landscape stops being an exotic postcard and becomes a moral space, the film finds some of the harshness it needed. I would not say it won me over, but I did understand there what many viewers value: a story about guilt that cannot be resolved with an apology or a check.
In the end, I am left with a film I respect more than I enjoy. It is well acted, has style, raises adult questions and contains a few moments of real discomfort. But I did not like it. It seemed distant, uneven, too sure of its own intelligence and emotionally dry. Its repellent characters are not always fascinating; its critique of privilege does not always bite; its atmosphere, though elegant, does not always compensate for the lack of involvement. A work with good materials and excellent actors, but for me far less absorbing than it intended to be.
The premise has strength: a wealthy couple arrives at a mansion in the Moroccan desert after fatally running over a local young man. From there, the film divides the world into two very clear spaces. On one side, the party of rich Europeans and Americans, drunk, cynical and bored. On the other, the family of the dead boy, the land, grief, tradition and a dignity that contrasts with the frivolity of the guests. The idea is powerful, but the development does not always sustain it.
Ralph Fiennes is, by far, the best thing in it. His character is unpleasant, classist, dry, selfish and almost proud of his own rot, but the actor manages to make him more than just a hateful puppet. There is tiredness, fear, contempt, guilt and a kind of moral emptiness that slowly begins to crack. The film improves whenever it stays with him on the journey, away from the party, forced to look at something he would rather turn into a mere procedure. Fiennes gives nuance to someone who, in worse hands, would have been only a rich bastard learning a lesson.
Jessica Chastain is also good, although her character felt more diffuse to me. She has presence, intelligence and that air of a woman caught between exhaustion, cynicism and survival inside a rotten marriage. But the film never quite makes her as interesting as she could be. There is a broken marital story, desire, contempt, boredom and resentment, but too often everything remains in sharp lines and tired looks. You can sense a richer film inside that relationship, but it does not always emerge.
The party section should be devastating, and to me it felt too caricatured. I understand the intention: to show a repulsive, banal elite, intoxicated by privilege, unable to register the gravity of a death because they experience everything as decoration, anecdote or logistical nuisance. But the characters are so unpleasant from the beginning that the satire loses its edge. There is no discovery, no fall, no surprise. They are horrible, speak horribly and the film seems satisfied with underlining it again and again. At times, rather than disturbing me, it tired me.
I also found it hard to enter the tone. It wants to be a moral drama, dry thriller, class satire, colonial portrait, black comedy and journey of expiation. That mixture could have been very interesting, but it felt uneven to me. There are well-written moments, beautiful desert images and a latent tension that works in some scenes, but also a sense of stillness, of a film posing too much. Everything seems calculated to appear adult, uncomfortable and literary, but it does not always breathe. Sometimes I admired the wrapping more than I felt the blow.
The subject of privilege also felt too obvious to me. I do not doubt the good intentions or intelligence of the proposal, but many ideas arrive already chewed: the rich are monstrously frivolous, the locals carry dignity and pain, Western guilt needs a ritual, money tries to cover everything. These are interesting conflicts, yes, but the film does not always find a new or emotionally strong way to express them. I had the impression that it wanted to say important things without revealing much to me.
Even so, not everything seems failed to me. There is a final stretch that leaves a better impression than some earlier passages, precisely because it becomes more sober and less dependent on the party. When Fiennes’s character faces the consequences, when the landscape stops being an exotic postcard and becomes a moral space, the film finds some of the harshness it needed. I would not say it won me over, but I did understand there what many viewers value: a story about guilt that cannot be resolved with an apology or a check.
In the end, I am left with a film I respect more than I enjoy. It is well acted, has style, raises adult questions and contains a few moments of real discomfort. But I did not like it. It seemed distant, uneven, too sure of its own intelligence and emotionally dry. Its repellent characters are not always fascinating; its critique of privilege does not always bite; its atmosphere, though elegant, does not always compensate for the lack of involvement. A work with good materials and excellent actors, but for me far less absorbing than it intended to be.
Mini Review: What happened to me with the film is that I could clearly see what it wanted to be, but it almost never managed to make me truly care. It has good actors, a powerful setting, an accident with moral weight and an obvious clash between Western privilege and someone else’s pain. On paper, everything should feel uncomfortable, poisonous and adult. Yet while watching it, I felt quite outside it. It did not seem like a disaster to me, but it did feel c...
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