The Forgiven

Moody, ambient film set in the rich beauty of desert Morocco. Suspenseful and full of Moroccan culture and influence. A morality tale between the haves and the have nots. Quite arresting, lush cinematography. I have visited Morrocco this year and appreciated the slice of culture. Tense and surprising.

The sets and landscapes are breathtaking. The cinematography outstanding. The performances are all stellar. And even though the pacing is slow enough to make the 117 min runtime feel much longer, writer and director John Michael McDonagh still manages to capture every special close-up shot and proverbial comment well enough to drive the hidden messages right through your heart.

However, as pretty and shiny as this film is, all the bloated intrigue and drama fails to deliver the true depth of the film. There's just too much filler and not enough substance. This film needed the mysteries and messaging to be harder, and the shallow pretentious eye-candy to be softer. Even the predicable ending could've been more exciting.

Nevertheless, a beautifully shot film with excellent performances that still manages to deliver a thought provoking message when morality is crossed with spoiled and entitled privilege, and the consequences that follow. It's a great one-time watch and a well deserved 7/10 from me.

Thoroughly enjoyed this movie. The writer takes two extremes of western and arab culture - represented here by a group of hedonist aristocrats and a desert tribe - and uses an incident that brings them together to examine how they interact. The core of the story is the interaction between dignity and honour culture, and we see how good men can be swayed to both good and bad acts by the influence of their respective value systems. The film neither patronises the viewer nor indulges in self-regard. The dialogue snaps along and the cast deliver authentic performances - there are no phone-ins here.

Richard Galloway (Matt Smith) and his gay partner Dally Margolis (Caleb Landry Jones) have created a private resort in the Moroccan desert. Hard-drinking surgeon David Henninger (Ralph Fiennes) and his wife Jo (Jessica Chastain) are two of their guests. In the dark of night, David gets lost driving to the resort. He hits and kills a local boy.

This reminds me of the TV show, The White Lotus. The guests are entitled and selfish. They make many assumptions about the locals. The locals have their own prejudices. It's a clash of cultures and classes. It raises uncomfortable questions about people. Unlike White Lotus, this does not use as much ironic humor and has the intensity raised up especially in David's journey. I could do with less Jo. Once David is headed out into the desert, the resort life holds much less importance.

The sad thing is that the world mostly consists of these shallow, little people who are buried in their own pettiness and cruelty and think that they hold the world inside their small feasts and despite their prestigious schooling and affluence, they remain small minded and uneducated.

Ralf Feines is the best thing that happened to this film, great support also by Ismael Kanater and Matt Smith. I can't say the same though about the flat Jessica Chastain and Christopher Abbott. Very good cinematography, amateuristic direction. All in all, this had the prospects of being really good but lacked in the details.