I saw John Michael McDonagh’s “The Forgiven” at last year’s shortened Toronto International Film Festival. It’s a fine-as-it-goes adult drama set at a stunning resort in Morocco.
Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain play a wealthy couple on the verge of divorce. They remain together for this one lavish weekend party at a Moroccan villa, but accidentally run over and kill a young Moroccan man. They put his body in their car and arrive at the weekend party. A cover-up ensues. So does a lot of dancing, drugs, and debauchery.
McDonagh is trying to show how these white elites and their privilege don’t really care about the dead Moroccan boy, until they have no choice but to deal with the tragedy. There’s a rather strange narrative construction in McDonagh’s screenplay, not fully concentrating on the death, but more the indifference of the culprits and their cohorts who party on.
There’s ambition in the way McDonagh tackles the social commentary, he’d rather deal with character than story and, for a while, we’re hooked until we realize there isn’t really much to grab onto here. Chastain and Fiennes are great, as always, and it’s hard to not want to spend 2 hours with these talented actors.
Chastain sniffs Coke, fucks Christopher Abbot and encourages her “pussy” husband to hide the dead body. How can you go wrong with that?
The film will obviously not move mountains. It has a 76% fresh rating on RT, and a 67 Metacritic score. Regardless, I’d watch Chastain read the phonebook at the point, she can do no wrong in my books.
A US release date has been inked up for July 1, both in theaters and on VOD.