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The Forgiven Reviews
The Forgiven is an absolute thought-provoking drama that will keep you on your toes and eyes rolling when the party continues.
John Michael McDonagh is the latest filmmaker to tell audiences “rich people are bad!” with The Forgiven, but unfortunately he says little else.
Fiennes, as good as any living actor at portraying English desiccation, excels as David’s tender, scarred humanity is gradually released from his shell of colonialistic contempt.
Still, it’s a lot of fun, and perfect for anyone feeling envious of those whose luxury holidays look too good to be true on Instagram.
I’m glad I saw the film, and I can give a mild recommendation to anyone who’s interested. Just know that there are stories that have utilized similar themes better, but there are also ones that have done it a lot worse.
…McDonagh’s unwillingness to characterise the Moroccan characters beyond surly servants and mute witnesses feels very old-fashioned and insensitive…
There are plenty of squirm-worthy moments...of neo-colonial privilege...[b]ut there is...redemption in its later half...contrasting the wild life of privilege of the rich partiers against the struggle to simply live of the people whose land it truly is.
The Forgiven takes the harder road, and actually proves more engrossing and haunting in retrospect than when you’re actually watching it. In an era of instant gratification, that, for all the film’s evident flaws, is still worth chin-stroking respect.
This brutal clash of cultures forms the core of the drama.
Despite giving us a couple salty strands of thematic jerky to gnaw on, The Forgiven is narratively and thematically messy. But Chastain and Fiennes elevate it to watchability.
Comes closer to embodying the tragic futility of two irreconcilable cultures attempting understanding, rather than properly deconstructing it.
The film flits between tragedy, vengeance yarn and morality tale with an occasionally uneven tone, as if trying to weave two or three disparate stories into one.
We’re never able to actually like David, although Fiennes is masterly in the way he portrays the character’s transformation.
... A gathering of cartoon ciphers who seem to have been created solely to allow McDonagh access to his favourite anti-woke whipping sticks.
While McDonagh’s direction is flawed – the pacing and tone are often all over the place – there is much to enjoy in The Forgiven, mostly the performances.
Osborne’s 2012 novel observed this clash between jaded westerners and impoverished East with the sharpness of Evelyn Waugh, but on screen that sharpness turns brittle — the bon mots aren’t quite as devastatingly funny as everyone seems to think they are.
John Michael McDonagh’s acerbic tragedy of manners and morals sees West meets East in a literal car crash of sloppy behaviour and messy intentions.
Beneath the garishly brittle portrait of ghastly westerners lording it up in Morocco, there’s a low-key, brooding quality to this accomplished if somewhat inert screen adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s 2012 bestseller.
With a starry cast and assured directoral hand It’s both a defective masterwork and minor misfire but one that packs a punch when required, and definitely warrants a watch.
The stiffness in the writing and general lack of subtlety leave this feeling underwhelming and overwrought. As a moral fable, The Forgiven offers little genuine critique.