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Dir: John Michael McDonagh. Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Matt Smith, Ismael Kanater, Caleb Landry Jones, Abbey Lee. 18, 117 minutes.

At what point does art’s stubborn (though not invalid) fascination with the inner mechanics of terrible people cross a line, and begin demanding we show mercy towards the truly irredeemable among us? It’s the problem that lies at the heart of The Forgiven, a somewhat on-the-nose title for a film that lines up for us a miniature troupe of the wealthy and perversely bigoted at leisure in Morocco, who feel free to say horrific things about the local population because they’re shielded behind the walls of a literal castle. The only Moroccans they speak to on a daily basis are the ones whose wages they pay. We watch these one-percenters scurry about like termites, spewing their awfulness, before one of their number undergoes a moral awakening and we...

Jessica Chastain and Ralph Fiennes in The Forgiven. Photo credit: Sife Elamine. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment

Jessica Chastain and Ralph Fiennes star as a wealthy couple who travel to Morocco for a posh weekend party at a remote desert location but when driving to their destination, they hit a local teen-aged boy in a fatal accident, with unforeseen and devastating consequences, in The Forgiven.

White privilege, particularly of the variety afforded the rich, is at the center of this thoughtful, thriller-like drama, as it explores the clash of cultures between these affluent Brits and the boy’s impoverished Bedouin family, as well as the toll it takes on the couple’s already rocky marriage.

We first meet the wealthy couple on a luxury speed boat streaking towards the Moroccan coast. David Henninger is a successful British plastic surgeon and Jo Henninger is his American wife, who was...

The Forgiven Review — The Forgiven (2021) Film Review, a movie directed by John Michael McDonagh, written by John Michael McDonagh and Lawrence Osborne and starring Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Matt Smith, Abbey Lee, Caleb Landry Jones, Christopher Abbott, Alex Jennings, Marie-Josee Croze, Fiona O’Shaughnessy, Said Taghmaoul, David McSavage, Mourad Zaoui, Ismael Kanater, Imane [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: The Forgiven (2021): Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain Are in Top Form in a Stylish Dramatic Thriller...

This review of “The Forgiven” first appeared when the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021.

A dark and dirty morality play where nobody’s very concerned with morals, John Michael McDonagh’s “The Forgiven” takes some extremely questionable behavior and makes it as intriguing as it is off-putting. There’s a lot of despicable stuff going on in this efficiently nasty drama from the Irish writer-director of “The Guard” and “Cavalry,” but in the hands of McDonagh, Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain, you may actually find yourself caring for these people more than they care for themselves.

The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021, is a timely piece of work based on Lawrence Osborne’s 2012 novel — it may focus on first-world problems, but that doesn’t stop it from delving into issues of white privilege, colonialism, casual racism and the conflict between the West and the Arab world.

The Forgiven Trailer — John Michael McDonagh‘s The Forgiven (2021) movie trailer has been released by RoadsideFlix. The Forgiven trailer stars Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Matt Smith, Ismael Kanater, Caleb Landry Jones, Abbey Lee, Saïd Taghmaoui, and Christopher Abbott. Crew John Michael McDonagh wrote the screenplay for The Forgiven. Lorne Balfe created the music [...]

Continue reading: The Forgiven (2021) Movie Trailer: Ralph Fiennes & Jessica Chastain Deal with The Consequences of a Tragedy at a Lavish Party...

"There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide." Roadside Attractions + Vertical Ent. have revealed the official trailer for an indie film titled The Forgiven, the latest from filmmaker John Michael McDonagh. This premiered at last year's Toronto Film Festival to some mixed reviews, but I'm still curious to give it a look when it opens this summer. The Forgiven takes place over a weekend in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and explores the reverberations of a random accident on the lives of both the local Muslims, and Western visitors to a house party in a grand villa. Ralph Fiennes & Jessica Chastain star as wealthy Londoners on a trip to a party at a lavish villa, who end up in trouble after a tragic accident with a local teenage boy. The full cast also includes Matt Smith, Ismael Kanater, Caleb Landry Jones, Abbey Lee, with Saïd Taghmaoui and Christopher Abbott. This...

Exclusive: Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment have co-acquired North American rights to The Forgiven, a starry thriller written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, which premiered at the 2021 Toronto Film Festival. Roadside will release the film in theaters next spring, with Vertical handling its digital rollout.

The Forgiven is based on the novel of the same name by Lawrence Osborne. It centers on wealthy Londoners David (Ralph Fiennes) and Jo Henninger (Jessica Chastain), who are involved in a tragic accident with a local teenage boy, after speeding through the Moroccan desert to attend an old friend’s lavish weekend party. Arriving late at the grand villa with the debauched party raging, the couple attempts to cover up the incident with the collusion of the local police. But when the boy’s father arrives seeking justice, the stage is set for a tension-filled culture clash in which David...

Watching the intriguing and unpredictable adult drama The Forgiven, which takes place right in the heart of the High Atlas mountains in Morocco, I couldn’t help but think that if the 2012 book on which it is based were around a few decades earlier this would be the kind of movie Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor would have made. It is actually a film dependent on a strong star pairing, and Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain certainly fill the bill as a somewhat bored married couple invited to spend the weekend at the isolated villa of a gay friend in the middle of the desert.

Based on the novel by Lawrence Osborne it is a story that pits the haves and the have nots, Westerners with money to spare versus local Muslims with nothing but miles of sand to traverse. On the one hand The Forgiven, written and directed by John Michael McDonagh and world premiering today at the Toronto Film Festival and with a title that even sounds like a movie Taylor and Burton might have made in the ’60s, is about that clash which happens solely due to a tragic accident that brings these disparate groups unexpectedly together. On the other hand it is about people from distinct and different backgrounds who deal with their own humanity in ways that couldn’t be more miles apart. It is a clash of cultures that serves on a very small level as something of a view for the world at large, one ultimately asking for universal understanding.

David Henninger (Fiennes) and his wife Jo (Chastain), a children’s author, are driving to spend the weekend at the elaborate and remote Moroccan villa (Willem Smit’s production design is aces) of their friend Richard (Matt Smith) and his gay lover Dalley Margolis (Caleb Landry Jones). Other kitschy guests will also be partying with no abandon there for the housewarming party of this renovated ksour in the middle of nowhere. Before they can arrive, David, not a terribly friendly man and a functioning alcoholic, gets drunk and winds up carelessly running over a young local man named Driss (Omar Ghazaoui), killing him. Not knowing what to do he takes the body to the house. Although a tragedy, this incident does not seem to dampen the mood, and is ruled an accident by authorities, perhaps favoring those with wealth vs those more expendable?

As the guests, a bourgeoisie bunch if ever there was one, go about their merry games, we get an ugly view of privileged western society where, despite outward appearances, they all seem to be dead behind the eyes if you ask me. There is also attractive American Tom Day (Christopher Abbott), party girl Cody (Abbey Lee), photographer Isabelle Peret (Marie-Josee Croze) and more drifting in and out of frame. The focus is primarily on David and Jo, he a lost cause and she potentially a decent person, if overdressed in evening gowns for the occasion, caught up in a dying marriage.

Things heat up considerably when Abdellah (an excellent Ismael Kanater), the father of the dead boy, arrives to identify the body. In a rare moment of remorse over causing this loss of a young man’s life, accident or not, David somewhat reluctantly agrees to accompany Abdellah and his group to the outer desert in order to bury the boy. Is this his version of atonement? It certainly adds a unique layer of tension to the story as he sets off in the car with this Muslim father of the boy he killed. Their interactions on the journey are the strongest part of the film.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…Jo opens up and shows emotional vulnerability as she falls into bed with Tom, ratcheting up the stakes when David returns, if he returns. We don’t really know how this will play out, and that is what kept me engaged right up to the very last moment.

In a directorial flourish I have never quite seen before, every single credit, including all the music cues and crew members, roll by at the beginning of the movie. McDonagh clearly has his reasons for that but it is disconcerting to say the least. I actually thought the link I got to watch the gorgeously shot movie (cinematography is by Larry Smith) was somehow unspooling backwards. I almost called the support line. Ultimately what McDonagh has wrought is a look into ourselves no matter what class we are in, and he clearly wants it to end with no ambiguity on that matter. Fiennes as a thoroughly unlikable man manages through his exceptional acting talent to show us how David may have a decent human buried deep inside. Chastain, who received the Actor award at TIFF today, is having quite a festival with The Eyes of Tammy Faye also premiering here this weekend on top of the HBO debut Sunday of her limited series Scenes From a Marriage. She brings extra dimension to a basically good woman who is trying to find any spark of life left in her. Smith, best known for The Crown, is perfectly cast as Richard, while Jones’ character is a little too weird to ever let the actor take it out of first gear. Best of all is perhaps is driver Anouar, as played by Said Taghmaoui, with genuine wisdom and smarts well above his pay grade. This is a rare and thoroughly adult drama offering much to think about.

Elizabeth Eves, Trevor Mathhews and Nick Gordon are producers. The production companies listed are House of Un-American Activities and Brookstreet Pictures. The print I saw was fronted by the Focus Features logo, but the title is being sold at TIFF. CAA is the sales agent.

If the vision of Jessica Chastain in a sleek Lbd sniffing coke and then vigorously bedding Christopher Abbott during a bacchanal in Morocco stokes your flames, then John Michael McDonagh’s “The Forgiven” is the movie for you. “I wish I wasn’t so worried,” she says before jubilantly downing another line of white powder. She wishes she were more worried about her husband, played by Ralph Fiennes, a selfish doctor who, during their now-derailed vacation stay at an old-time friend’s deliciously depraved party in the desert, has run over a Muslim child and failed to cover it up. She wishes she cared that he’s now been carted off to the boy’s Berber village in middle-of-nowhere North Africa to do penance by the kid’s father, and where he could possibly be hung and quartered. Will she miss him at all?

Working from a novel by Lawrence Osborne,...

Have you ever noticed how, in Western culture, when referring to someone’s death, writers feel obliged to insert the word “tragic” somewhere in the sentence? Is there any other kind, a reader might rightly ask. Sometimes they mean “unexpected,” a kind of shorthand intended to show that the life in question was cut short before its time. But just as often, the phrase “tragic death” is simply redundant, a trite cliché intended to signify that the speaker isn’t some callous bastard.

Writer-director John Michael McDonagh recognizes that not all deaths are tragic. Some are merciful, others accidental; while many are unfortunate, on some occasions, people meet an end that could be described as “poetic” — or at the least, deserved. McDonagh (like younger brother Martin) is a brute-force moralist. Both siblings write scripts in which the term “reckoning” often applies, which is to say, movies and plays where atonement...

We’re finally at the point where filming is starting to wrap up on productions that were postponed or halted due to Covid-19 back in March. Studios have been able to work within the new safety protocols to finish films that can possibly be released in 2021, including the forthcoming drama “The Forgiven,” which is set to star Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain.

Read More: ‘The 355’: Jessica Chastain Responds To Casting Backlash Regarding Penélope Cruz

With the film having just wrapped up its production, after being shut down in March, Focus Features is ready to shed some light on who else stars in “The Forgiven.” So, now, according to Deadline, we know that Chastain and Fiennes are joined by Said Taghmaoui (“La Haine”), Caleb Landry Jones (“X-Men: First Class”), Matt Smith (“The Crown”), Christopher Abbott (“The Sinner”), Ismael Kanater (“Queen Of The Desert”), Marie-Josée Croze (“Munich”), Alex Jennings (“The Crown...

Exclusive: Focus Features has pre-bought worldwide rights excluding North America to Ralph Fiennes-Jessica Chastain starrer The Forgiven, which has finally wrapped shoot.

Joining the previously announced Fiennes, Chastain, Said Taghmaoui (La Haine) and Caleb Landry Jones (X-Men: First Class) in the drama are Matt Smith (The Crown), Christopher Abbott (The Sinner), Ismael Kanater (Queen Of The Desert), Marie-Josée Croze (Munich), Alex Jennings (The Crown) and Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road).

John Michael McDonagh (The Guard) directs and adapted Lawrence Osborne’s novel, which explores the reverberations of a random accident on the lives of an Anglo-American couple, their friends and the local Moroccans, who all converge on a luxurious desert villa during a decadent weekend-long party.

Below and above are two first look images from the anticipated project, which has been on quite a journey thanks to the pandemic.

In the first half of 2020 the picture shot...

Betrayed - Based on journalist-playwright George Packer's original article in The New Yorker, Betrayed is a haunting new play about three Iraqi translators who risk everything for America's promise of freedom, even as their own country collapses around them. Original New York cast members Mike Doyle (Law and Order: Svu), Sevan Greene, Waleed F. Zuaiter and Jeremy Beck are joined by Andrea Gabriel, John Getz and Sam Kanater under the guidance of original director Pippin Parker. Winner of the 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Play. All performances are recorded to air on Latw's syndicated radio theater series, The Play's The Thing, which broadcasts weekly on public radio stations nationwide.