Movie Review: Jessica Chastain Wasted in Dreary Drama 'The Forgiven'

The Forgiven was made as a combination of the rich people ennui of The Great Gatsby and a moralist critique of the shiftless 1% wasting away on their vast fortunes while callously victimizing the disenfranchised. The film comes up short on both accounts. Written and Directed by John Michael McDonaugh, The Forgiven is sweaty, tired and unfocused outside a few genuinely emotional moments involving a grieving father and the man who killed his son.

The Forgiven stars Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain as a deeply bored and drifting apart married couple. He’s a doctor and she’s a children’s book author. As a couple they have plenty of money but very little joy. As we meet David and Jo Henninger they are traveling through Morocco and on their way to a distant location in the African desert. There, a long time friend of the couple, Richard (Matt Smith) and his partner Dally (Caleb Landry Jones), are throwing an old school bacchanal of rich people excess.

Before David and Jo arrive however, they are involved in an accident in the middle of the lonely desert. As David and Jo argue over whether they are lost or not, David doesn’t see a young boy on the side of the road trying to get his attention. The couple’s vehicle hits the boy and kills him. Not knowing what to do, they put the boy's body in the back of their car and take it to Richard’s house in hopes that their old friend can help them figure out what to do next.

The boy wasn’t alone that night, his friend was hiding in the hills and witnessed everything. He went back to the boy’s father and told him about the accident. After David and Jo have spent the night drinking away their sorrow, the boy’s father, Abdellah (Ismael Kanater), arrives at Richard’s mansion looking for his son’s body. The father has a request and while David is willing to pay the man for hitting his son, Abdellah has a different idea.

Instead of allowing the rich foreigner to pay his way out, Abdellah requires that David go back to his village with him to help bury the boy’s body. David is opposed to the idea, naturally his first instinct is to wonder if the father is a member of ISIS, but eventually he comes around to the idea. Meanwhile, Jo will remain at Richard’s where she will drown her guilt in booze, sunbathing and flirting with the only other American at the party, Tom, played by Christopher Abbott.

The Forgiven is professionally accomplished. Writer-Director John Michael McDonagh has all the pieces in place for a very good movie. The film has lush locations, an amazing cast, solid cinematography, and a lot of very good pieces. Sadly, those pieces never come together to form a cohesive whole. Despite the good pieces, The Forgiven is lifeless, emotionally drab, and filled with mostly despicable characters who are impossible to care about.

So much dramatic weight is placed on Ismael Kanater and the grief over the needless death of his son that the rest of the movie feels inert. Matt Smith has personality early on but he, like the rest of the movie, becomes rather muted after the body arrives at the party. Caleb Landry Jones tries to be transgressive with a detached, dark sarcasm but he just appears drunk and mean rather than biting and observant, the seeming intent of the character.

Only the bracing scenes between Ismael Kanater and Ralph Fiennes have any real life to them. As Fiennes is slowly roused from his drunken rich guy stupor and he begins to engage with Kanater’s soul deep sorrow we get at least two really good scenes. Also good are scenes between Fiennes and Abdalleh’s driver, Anouar (Said Taghmaoui). The two men find a genuine, friendly connection amid their tense drive from the party in the desert to Abdalleh’s home.

Back at the rich people party the ennui is palpable but impossible to be interested in. Chastain and Christopher Abbott have chemistry but their scenes have little point beyond the two being very attractive. It's truly some kind of crime to have Jessica Chastain in your movie and do so little with her. Everyone else in the supporting cast is doing lines of cocaine and failing to become interesting enough for me to remember who they were. The party is supposed to be a counterpoint to David and Abdalleh’s story but it’s so lacking in energy that it barely registers.

For reasons that never pay off, any time something happens at the party, McDonagh cuts to a reaction shot of one of Richard's servants. This man is given a lot of screen-time but nothing happens with the character. He seems to be judging the hosts and their guests and he has a moment where he dreams about leaving this job to run a hotel, but like so many other aspects of The Forgiven, his scenes are pointless. Perhaps this is an attempt to tap into audience racism and assume that because this man is a Muslim witnessing all of this sinful behavior, but that transgressive idea never takes hold in any meaningful way.

The Forgiven is a movie with a lot of promise that amounts to nothing. An extraordinary cast is lost in a sweaty, slow moving plot that cannot decide whether it intends to satirize these rich layabouts or whether the movie is intended as a genuine exploration of guilt, grief, and revenge. Ultimately, nothing emerges from The Forgiven other than a couple good scenes and a wealth of apathy. The Forgiven opened in limited theatrical release on July 1sts, 2022.