“The Unforgivable” (2021)
Everything in its right place.
Everything in its right place.
It was a cold, overcast and rainy Sunday morning as the alarm chirped, randomly, to “Everything in its right place” by Radiohead. Two hours later, and after watching the first of a number of films perfectly suited to sheltering from the April showers of a Sunday in the UK, the film ended with “Everything in its right place” by Radiohead.
What, was, that you tried to say?
What I’m trying to say is that you’d be forgiven for thinking I’d risen from my slumbers and decided, yet again, to venture into the darkness of identity loss and was lucid dreaming with Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and Kurt Russell in the criminally unloved Cameron Crowe directed Vanilla Sky from two decades ago, and I’d forgive you. Instead, I was loving a Netflix release from two years ago entitled The Unforgivable starring Sandra Bullock, Vincent D’Onofrio, Richard Thomas, Viola Davis and the magnificent John Bernthal and whilst the film was veering away ever so slightly from a tight, brilliantly portrayed and deliberately unapologetically grim tale, cue a piano recital of this Radiohead gem, a surprising twist, and everything was indeed in its right place after all.
Your star of an albeit grim tale, but, for a change, the right ending:
“Ruth Slater” (Sandra Bullock) A stranger in a strange land returning to Seattle, Washington after serving twenty years in prison. She’s a “cop killer, everywhere you go” and never allowed to forget, be forgiven, or move on despite serving her sentence before release for “good behaviour”. Ruth Slater has exchanged one prison for another, one strange land for another and one grim, dead-eyed existence for another too. She may have paid a statutory price for the repugnant crime of two decades ago but whether it be the families caught up in her horrific web, even her own, or the friends she tries to make as she attempts to re-build her life on the outside, she’s still in a prison of sorts, and a purgatory from which she can’t see an escape.
Sandra Bullock, who also served as a producer along with a host of others including Sally Wainwright who wrote the original 2009 television series upon which this film is based, is simply magnificent as the haunted, dead-eyed ex-convict not seeking redemption, just peace of mind in a strange, strange land.
Written for the screen by Peter Craig, Hillary Seitz and Courtenay Miles and directed by German born filmmaker Nora Fingscheidt in only her fourth all time feature length release and I believe first in the English language, this is unapologetically grim with very few smiles and a tough watch at times. That said, with the inclusion of the piano recital of “Everything in its right place” by Radiohead (OK! I’m an obsessed fan of the band!) and the trademark “hum” of an orchestral music score from Hans Zimmer (and David Fleming) together with outstanding performances from Sandra Bullock, Vincent D’Onofrio, Richard Thomas, Viola Davis and of course, John Bernthal, there’s a twist you may not see coming, a catharsis of an ending, and everything in its right place.
Highly recommended.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 500+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
“John Wick — Chapter 2” (2017)
The return of “Death’s very emissary”.medium.com
“John Wick” (2014)
The Legend begins.medium.com
“The Lobster” (2015)
A Brave New World of dystopian madness.medium.com