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 once a writer of children’s books. They are headed to a lavish weekend party at the home of a friend, Richard “Dickie” Galloway (Matt Smith) and his lover, Dally Margolis (Caleb Landry Jones), for a party full of feasting, drinking and orgies, attended by a posh crowd of house guests. The Henningers are bickering, mostly over David’s drinking, and when they leave their hotel in Tangiers, after a boozy lunch, for the long drive to Richard and Dally’s remote compound, it is already late in the day. The couple find themselves lost in the dark, on a unpaved road in the empty desert. Empty except for two teen-aged boys selling fossils, one of whom tries to flag them down in the road but who is hit instead.
The couple arrive late for the party and the police are called, as their host Richard tries to soothe their nerves and deal with the situation, while also keeping what has happened from the already-partying other guests. With no cell phone reception in the desert, the panicked couple placed the boy’s body in their car, trusting that Richard, with his knowledge of the local rules, would know what to do to help them dodge the consequences, or at least the worst ones. Sure that their host has everything in hand, the couple join the party for a late supper. There is a Great Gatsby vibe in this with an added layer of insensitivity as these wealthy white folks hold their drunken party in an poorer Muslim nation.
But not all has been smoothed over yet, as the local police find it odd that the boy has no identification on him, as ordinarily would be expected, and plan to question David further. Their host tries to reassure them is it just routine but private talks between Richard and David reveal that they both know that if the boy is identified, his family may expect to be paid, as is the custom. Yet David insists the boy had no ID on him when he was hit, and both he and his wife fail to mention the second boy at all. All the police can determine is that the boy does not belong to a local family, so they assume he is from a tribe outside the area.
But the boy’s family does come looking for him and his identity – Driss (Omar Ghazaoui) – is revealed, sparking a confrontation between David and the boy’s father Abdellah (Ismael Kanater), and a companion, Anouar (Saïd Taghmaoui) who serves as a translator. Both David and Jo have to face what has happened, as David tries to navigate his way through a fraught cross-cultural landscape that includes an angry, grieving father and a host of rules David doesn’t know or understand.
Fiennes’ Henninger is pretty unforgivable, and his wife is little better. The same can be said, to varying degrees, of the guests and their hosts, Dally has dressed up his Moroccan servants in costumes, as they stand by to serve the drunken guests at this bacchanal. Cultural sensitivity is boldly absent.
Director/writer John Michael McDonagh who adapted Lawrence Osborne’s novel of the same name, uses this situation to spotlight some of the facts of the hard lives of rural Moroccans, who in this area subsist on selling fossils to wealthy Europeans and international museums and institutions. The sense of resentment on their part is thick, as is the foreigners’ sense of entitlement.
As the story unfolds, layers are peeled back and more is revealed about the Moroccan’s ways and the attitudes on both sides towards the other. Both David and Jo have to face what has gone wrong in their lives and their marriage, and grapple with their own values and responsibility for their actions.
Both Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain turn in find performances although Fiennes has the heavier lift as the troubled and troubling David. Matt Smith plays an unexpected role, as a sometimes Greek chorus commenting on the the customs and ways of the local people, revealing a deeper understanding and sympathy than we expect, and sometimes revealing awareness of what is happening under his own roof, At the same time, he continues to play genial host to his guests, smoothly ensuing they remain oblivious to what is going, and handling his more fractious lover, who judges the Henningers harshly, but mostly for spoiling the party. Matt Smith is excellent as he carries out his character’s balancing act, conveying a wistfulness we don’t expect. Caleb Landry Jones is acerbic and witty as the culturally-clueless Dally. Christopher Abbott plays a handsome American, Tom, who sets out to charm one woman after another, including Jo, as the wild party rages on.
This is not a subtle film. There are plenty of squirm-worthy moments in this showcase of neo-colonial privilege and plenty of familiar rich people excess, But there is some redemption in its later half, in the time the film does spend with the boy’s family, who come across far classier than the crass rich. What happens is not completely unexpected but the time the film spends contrasting the wild life of privilege of the rich partiers against the struggle to simply live of the people whose land it truly is, couldn’t be more pointed or poignant, which goes a way towards making this drama worthwhile. THE FORGIVEN is an exploration of cultures clashing in a growing global wealth divide, where the meaning and terms of forgiveness are unclear, or if it is even possible.
THE FORGIVEN is available on video on demand, starting Friday, July 15, and in select theaters.
RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
