The Forgiven: Adaptation of High-Stakes Thriller a Masterclass in Revenge
By Kim Hughes
Rating: A
It’s no surprise that writer-director John Michael McDonagh elected to adapt Lawrence Osborne’s blistering 2012 novel The Forgiven as the two share an obvious interest in exploring the carnage behind the curtain. There’s a sense these two would be thrilling to eavesdrop on as they compared notes on artistic ephemera, stiff scotches in hand.
McDonagh’s sumptuous version of the novel —which premiered at TIFF last year — is utterly faithful and thus note perfect, capturing its resonant ruminations on social inequity, racism, and cultural tourism in a sweeping Moroccan desert Sheltering Sky novelist Paul Bowles would recognize.
Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain star as David and Jo Henninger, an unhappily married London-based couple attending a bacchanalian weekend party hosted by a wealthy gay couple at their swank North African digs.
Apart from the improbably lush and wildly remote surroundings, the most notorious aspect of the scene is its observant Muslim servants, who must reconcile their need for wages against the sight of non-believers drinking, drugging, and having lots of sex. Neither the blazing Moroccan sun nor its inky nighttime skies can obfuscate the lust fueling the guestlist.
On route to the villa, driving drunk and lost, David hits and kills a local boy. Panicked, Jo and David load the boy into their car and continue to the villa where their arrival, not surprisingly, triggers a volley of events that will change the course of everyone’s weekend, and maybe their lives.
When the dead boy’s father arrives expecting David to atone for his deed, David assumes he wants money. But David is wrong. Since his reputation is on the line, David leaves the villa at the request of the father and heads into the desert to help bury the boy, leaving Jo behind to pursue romance that’s been lacking in her marriage for years. Things suddenly get very real.
Those who have read Osborne’s slight but gripping novel might wish there had been some way of better reflecting the rich inner dialog of its characters. It’s no wonder the author has been compared favourably to Graham Greene, who also managed to make fictional people seem wholly three-dimensional and relatable in ways that are often uncomfortable.
But The Forgiven, the movie, is an adaptation, and viewers will undoubtedly walk away with a clear sense of what Osborne, and director McDonagh, most hoped they would sense: that things are seldom as they seem on the surface, and comeuppance can rarely be outrun.
The Forgiven. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Matt Smith, Ismael Kanater, and Caleb Landry Jones. Opens July 1 in Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa; July 8 in London, Kingston, and Waterloo; and July 15 in Hamilton.