The Forgiven Movie Storyline. On the verge of divorce, wealthy couple David (Ralph Fiennes) and Jo (Jessica Chastain, also appearing at the Festival in The Eyes of Tammy Faye) are on their way to a lavish weekend party, and accidentally run over and kill a young Moroccan man trying to sell fossils by the roadside. They put his body in their car and arrive at the party at a mansion hosted by a worldly gay couple.
Once the body is tucked away in the bowels of the villa, the partygoers return to the circus of dancing, drugs, and debauchery. The next morning, David’s buzz becomes a hangover as he’s forced to reckon with the boy’s father and meet his own fate. For the others, the party must go on.
Jessica Chastain, Ralph Fiennes, Caleb Landry Jones, Christopher Abbott, Saïd Taghmaoui, and Marie-Josée Croze lead a stellar ensemble cast in this wild foray into opulence, sin, and reckoning set deep in the Moroccan desert.
Making his Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) debut, John Michael McDonagh (The Guard) applies a Felliniesque lens towards the bourgeoisie, showing how their vapid pursuits prey on (or ignore) the livelihoods of others, sometimes with deadly results. The shimmer of these events, contrasted with the bleakness of the working class and Moroccan help who observe from the periphery, allows McDonagh to explore fatalistic themes of hedonism, neocolonialism, and the negligence of privilege.
The Forgiven is a 2021 film written and directed by John Michael McDonagh and based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Lawrence Osborne. It stars Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Caleb Landry Jones, Saïd Taghmaoui, Christopher Abbott, and Matt Smith. Elizabeth Eves and McDonagh produced through their House of Un-American Activities Productions.
It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2021. It is scheduled to be released in the United States on July 1, 2022, by Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment, and in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2022, by Focus Features.
The Forgiven (2022)
Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Matt Smith, Saïd Taghmaoui, Christopher Abbott, Ismael Kanater, Caleb Landry Jones, Mourad Zaoui, Abbey Lee, Alex Jennings, Marie-Josée Croze
Screenplay by: John Michael McDonagh
Production Design by: Willem Smit
Cinematography by: Larry Smith
Film Editing by: Elizabeth Eves, Chris Gill
Costume Design by: Keith Madden
Art Direction by: Ian Bailie, Teddy Setiawan
Music by: Lorne Balfe
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, drug use, some sexual content and brief violence..
Distributed by: Roadside Attractions
Release Date: July 1, 2022
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