60
The film’s strange scrappy indefinability is both its blessing and curse. We’re left with pieces, interesting on their own and sometimes together, but not quite enough to complete the puzzle.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Slashfilm by Chris Evangelista
The Forgiven runs the risk of becoming a thoughtless movie about a vile white man who is taught a lesson by wise brown people, but McDonagh, who also wrote the script, manages to (mostly) avoid that with a subtle touch.
58
McDonagh is such a smart writer that one spends much of the movie waiting for his script to exhibit some awareness of the trope, and to comment on it, but that acknowledgment never arrives – and as a result, this is his thinnest screenplay to date, flimsy enough that, in a lesser actor’s hands, it could really fall apart.
90
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Scripted, directed and acted with intelligence and panache, it’s a very grown-up film but never a bore, a morally alert drama that leaves the scolding to us.
50
Whatever satire of white elite society is intended by The Forgiven has been blunted by monotony.
80
McDonagh’s characters are more complex than the initial caricatures make them out to be — perhaps, in the end, even pitiful — leaving audiences to decide how they feel about their ultimate fates.
60
Chastain pulls focus whenever she can, operating as one of the film’s main resources of levity and acerbic bite. I wish the movie had more of that energy—McDonagh keeps the proceedings oddly muted given the circumstances—but at least Chastain is there, pepping things up a bit.
83
While this nasty film seems headed toward a conclusion where the rich win and the status quo is maintained, that’s abruptly shattered by a violent climax that assures that no one on either side of the divide is left without a bloodstain.
81
Dark and unsettling, The Forgiven doesn’t ask us to like its characters, but it forces us to watch as privilege begins to shatter and people for whom everything feels inconsequential have to deal with consequences.
60
The storytelling ends up a little too murky to be the grand commentary on privilege and exploitation McDonagh intends.