REVIEW: The Unforgivable

Don't expect a sweet romcom, captivating thriller or an exciting crime story. The Unforgivable is a melancholic, bitter ballad. At the same time an inconspicuous gem that requires all of your attention from the very first second. Shot by extremely talented German director Nora Fingscheidt.

It's a powerful story about painful, traumatic past of two women, which is attached to them like ball and chain. They can't move on without it. Because of it, they suffer for many years. Each in a different way and different intensity. On the specific day, when everything has changed, flashbacks appear in their mind.

Free at last after twenty years

Ruth Slater (Sandra Bullock) returns to freedom after twenty years behind bars. Receiving several instructions that she must follow, along with the worst housing. She has to keep her mouth shut and be an obedient citizen.

Ruth is extremely careful, and when it's necessary, she can be harsh and violent. She knows how to handle sketchy individuals that lurk on every corner. She resists any closeness with the opposite sex. She is quite uncertain, but there is one clear goal for her - to find her sister Katherine (Aisling Franciosi) no matter what it takes. But it's much more dangerous than she would have thought.

Oscar performance

Lawyer John Ingram (Vincent D'Onofrio) is supposed to help her and, on the contrary, Katherine's adoptive parents have to prevent her from ever seeing her sister again. In the movie, you'll find out whether Ruth will succeed. Look forward to more well-written characters. One of them played by the excellent Jon Bernthal (The Punisher, The Wolf of Wall Street), other by the always compelling Viola Davis (Widows).

However, Sandra Bullock steals the whole show for herself. She's an Oscar-winning actress, that's a known fact. She won the golden statue in 2009 for the film The Blind Side and it's very debatable if she acted better in that film than in The Unforgivable. Here, too, she gives an Oscar-worthy performance. She's absolutely fantastic here. In every detail, when we see her anger, fear or determination, we're in it with her and wish her the best.

The viewer gets to feel the fear 

The viewer can understand all of her motivations and each one of her actions. Since the narration is conducted in a way that the viewer knows more than the main character, they also feel the fear. The viewers worry about how things will turn out. At the same time, the experienced screenwriting trio Peter Craig, Hillary Seitz and Courtenay Miles keep the aces up their sleeves. They guide the viewer through thick and thin, exactly according to the plan, so that they can surprise or even shock in the end.

   
The excellently mysterious montage took place under the scrutiny of the most important person, which is the director Nora Fingscheidt. Lovers of European art cinema are certainly familiar with her previous work. System Crasher, was pure perfection. On top of that, the11-year-old Helena Zengell took everyone's breath away with her performance at the time. Paul Greengrass cast her at the time in the western News of the World, right next to Tom Hanks.

Family first

The family motif, or family bond, is the utter foundation of the filmography of the German director. She literally performs an autopsy on the characters, never letting the characters take a break, doesn't leave them alone, keeps adding more and more weight on their shoulders and placing obstacles in their way. And that's the reason why we thoroughly enjoy watching it. Not that we're inherently malicious, but especially because we get to see how the characters deal with it. Perhaps we even get inspired by them.

The Unforgivable flows beautifully and thrives all the way through to the last act. The final twist, unfortunately, doesn't completely work and the film would do great without it. The thriller finale could be more exciting and less predictable. These are actually the only drawbacks of the film.

Everything else - from camera compositions and in-frame assembly to sensitive soundtrack - is truly top notch. The Unforgivable is a precise, first-class drama and definitely stands out from a number of average or below-average cheap tales with naive scenarios, abundant on Netflix. For these reasons, we're giving this film eight and a half points out of ten.