‘The Forgiven’: Sex, Drugs and Murder in Morocco [Review]

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 still decide to go to their weekend party. A cover-up ensues. So does a lot of dancing, drugs, and debauchery.

McDonagh is trying to show how these white elitist types don’t really care about the dead Moroccan, 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 not that much of a chore spending two hours with these fine 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 husband abides, but complications ensue, convoluted ones at 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. Her character here is practically a femme fatale as she constantly leaves you guessing what might going on inside her insidiously amoral psyche. [B-]

A US release date has been inked up for this coming Friday in theaters.