The film, “The Unforgivable” written by Sally Wainwright that came out on November 25 2021, is a film about a woman (Ruth Slater) released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and attempts to re-enter society. She must try to put her life back together again in a world that refuses to forgive her past.

Sandra Bullock who is played as Ruth, plays a role of a violent criminal who is being released from prison by a parole officer (Rob Morgan.) In his role, he’s influential in a few scenes but mostly his role is subjected to the background. Ruth wants to be reunited with her younger sister whom she had not had any contact with for twenty years. As a parolee, Ruth works two different jobs and in one of those she begins to have a friendship with a co-worker played by Jon bernthal. Now at one point, Ruth visits her childhood home where she encounters Viola Davis and Vincent D ‘onofrio who just so happens to be an attorney that can assist Ruth in reuniting with her sister because of the nature of Ruth’s crime. She’s not a popular parole and has people unhappy that she is out, and this is the impetus for some of the drama that will ensue during this 1h 52 min movie. Enough of the spoilers, I am going to be giving my honest opinion about how I personally feel about the movie.

To begin, I am going to start with the main character, Ruth (Sandra Bullock). I very much enjoyed her performance. She looked very gaunt especially in her face which showed she had a hard life in prison. I enjoyed how she was quietly desperate but is wildly restrained so that she doesn’t get thrown back into custody just for any sort of infraction. We can see the struggle in her eyes and body language especially as she encounters difficulty in trying to find her sister. There is a slight mystery that plays out through the course of the story where we get bits and pieces of the events that landed Ruth in prison and they are shown to us in brief flashback moments slowly piecing together everything that had occurred.

I mean, it really could’ve just been a movie of the year. Sandra Bullock gives a great  performance but everything else fails to wow me or even provide a good amount of depth. John Berthal has an intriguing character and I really like the dynamic that his character was beginning to have with Ruth and the same goes for Ruth and Donofrio’s character. He’s got some good chemistry with but it’s limited.

I had mentioned the mystery that plays out in flashbacks and while I enjoyed the unfolding, there is quite  a bit of repetition which I’m not certain is necessary. I mean some overlap is going to happen and it’s even good to help establish the timeline but, we don’t need to see the same events multiple times with very little new footage added on. Aside from Ruth’s desperation to reconnect with her sister, everything else feels like we’re only getting a small piece of a larger story. It’s like there’s a ton more that the story wants to convey or at least discuss but there’s not enough time.

There are even some incidents or moments in Ruth’s sister’s life that are hinted at or briefly mentioned  but that’s where the story stops with them. I mean I think the biggest issue this story has is that it wants  to tell more than it has the ability to do so. It’s got like four to six arms and really only the capability of  telling two of them in the time allotted. This makes everything in the narrative suffer because nothing is  fully examined and explored so overall. I enjoyed all of the performances in this especially bullock, I don’t think the other characters get the same opportunity to really expand on their roles and I would have loved to have seen more of certain character arcs.

A photo of the main character in the movie “The Unforgivable”

Sources:

David Rooney “Sandrack bullock ‘The Unforgivable film’: review”the hollywood reporter, November  2021 6:00am //www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-unforgivable-sandra bullock-1235052437/

Odie henderson “ The Unforgivable “ The Robert Reger December 10 2021

//www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-unforgivable-movie-review-202//

Robert Daniels “Netflix’s The Unforgivable asks Sandra bullock to go way too hard” Polygon  December 9 2021 5:25 pm //www.polygon.com/reviews/22826879/the-unforgivable-netflix review// French, Kimberley. “Rather than Telling a Story of Both Redemption and Accountability,  the Film Is a Bleak Representation of Life after Incarceration.” Mashable.com, Meera Navlakha , 14  Dec. 2021, https://mashable.com/article/netflix-the-unforgivable-sandra-bullock. Accessed 5 Nov.  2022.