Fiennes, as good as any living actor at portraying English desiccation, excels as David’s tender, scarred humanity is gradually released from his shell of colonialistic contempt.

| Jan 27, 2025

Still, it’s a lot of fun, and perfect for anyone feeling envious of those whose luxury holidays look too good to be true on Instagram.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 11, 2024

I’m glad I saw the film, and I can give a mild recommendation to anyone who’s interested. Just know that there are stories that have utilized similar themes better, but there are also ones that have done it a lot worse.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 1, 2024

…McDonagh’s unwillingness to characterise the Moroccan characters beyond surly servants and mute witnesses feels very old-fashioned and insensitive…

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 13, 2022

There are plenty of squirm-worthy moments...of neo-colonial privilege...[b]ut there is...redemption in its later half...contrasting the wild life of privilege of the rich partiers against the struggle to simply live of the people whose land it truly is.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 3, 2022

The Forgiven takes the harder road, and actually proves more engrossing and haunting in retrospect than when you’re actually watching it. In an era of instant gratification, that, for all the film’s evident flaws, is still worth chin-stroking respect.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 3, 2022

This brutal clash of cultures forms the core of the drama.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 2, 2022

Despite giving us a couple salty strands of thematic jerky to gnaw on, The Forgiven is narratively and thematically messy. But Chastain and Fiennes elevate it to watchability.

| Nov 2, 2022

Comes closer to embodying the tragic futility of two irreconcilable cultures attempting understanding, rather than properly deconstructing it.

| Original Score: B | Nov 2, 2022

The film flits between tragedy, vengeance yarn and morality tale with an occasionally uneven tone, as if trying to weave two or three disparate stories into one.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2022

We’re never able to actually like David, although Fiennes is masterly in the way he portrays the character’s transformation.

| Sep 22, 2022

... A gathering of cartoon ciphers who seem to have been created solely to allow McDonagh access to his favourite anti-woke whipping sticks.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 20, 2022

While McDonagh’s direction is flawed – the pacing and tone are often all over the place – there is much to enjoy in The Forgiven, mostly the performances.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 13, 2022

Osborne’s 2012 novel observed this clash between jaded westerners and impoverished East with the sharpness of Evelyn Waugh, but on screen that sharpness turns brittle — the bon mots aren’t quite as devastatingly funny as everyone seems to think they are.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 12, 2022

John Michael McDonagh’s acerbic tragedy of manners and morals sees West meets East in a literal car crash of sloppy behaviour and messy intentions.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 6, 2022

Beneath the garishly brittle portrait of ghastly westerners lording it up in Morocco, there’s a low-key, brooding quality to this accomplished if somewhat inert screen adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s 2012 bestseller.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2022

With a starry cast and assured directoral hand It’s both a defective masterwork and minor misfire but one that packs a punch when required, and definitely warrants a watch.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 2, 2022

The stiffness in the writing and general lack of subtlety leave this feeling underwhelming and overwrought. As a moral fable, The Forgiven offers little genuine critique.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 2, 2022

Sees Fiennes deliver one of his finest performances...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 2, 2022

Do you like your humour wickedly dark, bordering on the unpleasant? Then The Forgiven could be the film for you.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 2, 2022