The For­giv­en

A log­i­cal point of com­par­i­son for John Michael McDonagh’s The For­giv­en is Babel, Ale­jan­dro González Iñár­ritu​’s sweep­ing 2006 nar­ra­tive of inter­wo­ven sto­ries. While this sticks to one coun­try, and is less ambi­tious in its scope, the dra­mat­ic cat­a­lysts in both films con­cern trag­ic acci­dents involv­ing white tourists and local young men col­lid­ing in the deserts Moroccan.

Babel is a film which focus­es on con­cepts of mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion and glob­al­i­sa­tion, while The Forgiven’s the­mat­ic meat is instead the reck­less­ness of the con­de­scend­ing rich, along­side West­ern influ­ence on the Arab world. All with writer-direc­tor McDonagh’s trade­mark provoca­tive and caus­tic humour – pre­vi­ous­ly seen in The Guard, Cal­vary and War on Every­one – bolt­ed on to incon­sis­tent effect.

The film sees Cori­olanus co-stars Ralph Fiennes and Jes­si­ca Chas­tain play hus­band and wife once more, with Fiennes again play­ing an anus. They’re invit­ed to the desert vil­la of old friend Richard (Matt Smith) and his part­ner Dal­ly (Caleb Landry Jones) for a week­end cel­e­bra­tion near the High Atlas Moun­tains. Dri­ving to the remote abode at night, Fiennes’ alco­holic David hits and kills impov­er­ished teenag­er Driss (Omar Ghaza­oui) while under the influence.

Chastain’s Jo ini­tial­ly descends into a state of shock, while David is more con­cerned with con­se­quences than being remorse­ful for hav­ing killed some­one. While Richard and Dal­ly at first express seem­ing­ly gen­uine hor­ror at the sight of the body brought to their place, mat­ters quick­ly turn to prag­ma­tism and get­ting fes­tiv­i­ties back on track. 

Fol­low­ing a police report, Driss’ father, Abdel­lah (Ismael Kanater), lat­er arrives at the estate, insist­ing David accom­pa­ny him and Eng­lish-speak­ing asso­ciate Anouar (Saïd Tagh­maoui) back to their vil­lage for a bur­ial. Richard and com­pa­ny prac­ti­cal­ly have to force David into the vil­lagers’ van to make amends, the big­ot­ed man con­vinced he’s either about to lose thou­sands in a pay-off or be kid­napped by ​“fuck­ing ISIS”.

Here, the nar­ra­tive splits. Fol­low­ing David in one strand, we get a famil­iar tale of a priv­i­leged indi­vid­ual grad­u­al­ly learn­ing a les­son from the sac­ri­fice of some­one dis­ad­van­taged. Con­sid­er­ing McDonagh’s pre­vi­ous writ­ing form, you’re left expect­ing some sub­ver­sion or com­men­tary on this overused device – but it nev­er comes. That this sec­tion works at all is tes­ta­ment to Fiennes’ abil­i­ty to inject depth into a rel­a­tive­ly one-note char­ac­ter, and the ever-reli­able Tagh­maoui, with whom he forms a bond, also deliv­ers the dra­mat­ic goods. Back at the par­ty, Jo enjoys free­dom from her ter­ri­ble hus­band, embrac­ing the advances of Christo­pher Abbott​’s Tom.

But McDon­agh gives the rest of the tal­ent­ed cast pre­cious lit­tle to do. Marie-Josée Croze’s sanc­ti­mo­nious pho­to­jour­nal­ist proves incon­se­quen­tial. Alex Jen­nings’ lord is intro­duced with hype upon his late arrival, only to con­tribute very lit­tle to pro­ceed­ings. And poor Abbey Lee – so great an ensem­ble play­er in Mad Max: Fury Road and Old – is here a glo­ri­fied extra despite high billing, sad­dled with a dia­logue-light par­ty girl stereo­type. And an oral punch­line, in that she exits the film offer­ing some­one a blowjob for a ride to Casablanca.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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