Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson September 30, 2022

John Michael McDonagh's fourth feature The Forgiven (2022) uses a ksar (or castle) as a microcosm for Britain's post-colonial rule of Africa. Situated in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, the ksar is owned by Brit Richard Galloway (Matt Smith), who hosts a several-days-long party for European and American elites. The class system is still very much in place with Hamid (Mourad Zaoui) and other Arabic servants waiting on Richard, his gay partner Dally Margolis (Caleb Landry Jones), and other privileged guests, including Lord Swanthorne (Alex Jennings), French photojournalist (Marie-Josée Croze), and several curvaceous partygoers. Also arriving are British surgeon David Henninger (Ralph Fiennes) and his wife, Jo (Jessica Chastain). David has fell out of favor with the medical establishment and seems to have lost his zest as a doctor. Jo is an author of children's books but has been on writer's block, not having published a book in eight years. David and Jo are at a crossroads in their marriage of a dozen years. They appear to not love each other like they once did but perhaps a soirée at their friend Richard's villa can at least rekindle some of their once-held passion?

David describes himself as a "functioning alcoholic" and during an evening drive with his wife from Tangier across the Sahara, he's had one too many drinks and speeds up the car. Before David can pull on the brakes, a boy named Driss (Omar Ghazaoui) scuttles in front of his car. Driss and a friend have been digging fossils, which they hope to sell to Westerners like David and Jo. David hits the young Berber, killing him. Jo is more distressed over the accident than her husband, who considers it an unpleasant inconvenience en-route to a scheduled party. David places Driss's body in the back of the car and drives him to Richard's ksar. The host is a little shaken but not shocked. He tells David that they must report it to the local authorities as an accident. When police Captain Benihadd (Ben Affan) arrives, there's little he can do beyond file a brief report since no IDs are found on Driss's person. David thinks he's in the clear but the next day, some of the local boys must have gotten word about what happened since they pelt David with rocks while he rides a camel. Sure enough, Abdellah Taheri (Ismael Kanater), Driss’s father, arrives at the ksar with two of his confidantes. Abdellah has come to claim his son. He doesn't really look at David and communicates with him through his interpreter, Anouar (Saïd Taghmaoui). Abdellah says it is Berber custom for an honorable man like David to accompany him back into the desert so he can pay his respects at Driss's burial site. David would prefer not to go but he doesn't have any other choice. He had hoped that offering 1,000 euros in restitution to Abdellah will suffice but he holds off when the father basically orders him to ride back with him.

David undergoes a character transformation when Abdellah drives him across the Sahara where they eventually settle in the Berber community. Back at the villa, American financial analyst Tom Day (Christopher Abbott) flirts with Jo, who accepts his advances without reservation. The ksar is a site of unabashed white privilege where partygoers imbibe champagne and do coke. By contrast, David's time with Abdellah and Anouar prove to be a much more humbling experience.

The Forgiven is based on Lawrence Osborne's eponymous 2012 novel, which went on to become a bestseller. The film examines a culture class wherein the Westerners are seen as ignorant and poorly informed. McDonagh's work crystalizes the Islamophobia that's punctuated by David's caveat about riding with Abdellah and his entourage: "They might be ISIS." The movie also asks more universal questions about humanity: Is it sufficient on moral grounds to be accountable for one's reckless actions? Is it enough to forgive oneself?

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Vertical Entertainment's new release of The Forgiven arrives on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25. Larry Smith's cinematography, shot in 2.39:1, can be placed in two different camps. On the one hand, the sand dunes and arid spaces of the Sahara are dominated by tan and light-blue skies. Nighttime shots are lit by a lantern, for example (see Screenshot #s 5 and 14). On the other hand, scenes set at the ksar display a spectrum of multicolored lights and different tones (see frame grabs 3, 12, and 15) and primary colors in the guestrooms (e.g., see screen capture #17). Colorist Scott Goulding did an excellent job with the digital grading. Colors look sharp and almost glossy in early scenes (see #s 1 and 16). There is no video noise or compression-related artifacts. Vertical has encoded the feature at a mean video bitrate of 21167 kbps.

Vertical has provided twelve scene selections for the 117-minute movie.

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Vertical has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (3420 kbps, 24-bit) and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo downmix (1984 kbps, 24-bit). I feel that the 5.1 track is at its liveliest at the villa where it captures partygoers' chatter and musical festivities well on the satellite speakers. The film's dialogue is delivered mostly in English. There are also spoken words in Arabic and French. For the latter two languages, small, auto-generated English subtitles pop up (see Screenshot #20). Vertical has also included optional English SDH for the feature.

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Alas, there are no bonus features.

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Forgiven (2022) reminds me of Bernardo Bertolucci's superior desert epic, The Sheltering Sky (1990), starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich. (It's all-but impossible to have better cinematography than anything shot by Vittorio Storaro.) I haven't read Lawrence Osborne's novel but I suspect that the characters and themes are better developed than they are here in McDonagh's adaptation. Ralph Fiennes and Saïd Taghmaoui deliver the film's two best performances. Seeing this makes me want to watch Fiennes's directorial debut, Coriolanus (2011), which also features Jessica Chastain. Vertical Entertainment delivers a sometimes shiny, always-impressive looking transfer and very solid lossless audio. A MODERATE RECOMMENDATION for The Forgiven.