Sandra Bullock plays a woman on parole in this Netflix film adaptation of a British mini-series.
To forgive is divine. To forget is good enough in Nora Fingscheidt’s “The Unforgivable,” a tortured drama that tracks a half-dozen Seattleites grappling with — or oblivious to — decades-long traumas caused by the killing of a cop during a fraught eviction. After being convicted of that crime, Ruth (Sandra Bullock), did 20 years in prison. Now paroled, she telegraphs her angst with sunken eyes and chapped lips; the film’s sickly yellow lighting does the same, as does Ruth’s night-shift factory gig decapitating salmon. But the dead officer’s sons (Will Pullen and Tom Guiry) don’t think that Ruth has repented enough — a judgment shared by the adoptive parents (Richard Thomas and Linda Emond) who raised Ruth’s orphaned baby sister, Katherine, to forget her older sibling. The adult Katherine (Aisling Franciosi) is haunted by memories of a mysterious brunette. (Katherine crashes her car the moment Ruth is released from prison, giving the film a mystical spritz that evaporates immediately.)
This is a glum show of flashbacks scored by strings that keen as though Ruth’s conscience is rubbing a wet finger on a glass of water. The screenplay, adapted by Peter Craig, Hillary Seitz and Courtenay Miles from a British mini-series, gifts Bullock a few big screaming scenes but mostly has her slouching around silently while it dithers over whether or not to root for Ruth to rebuild her life. (Symbolically, she has a second job in construction.)
On Team Ruth is Jon Bernthal as a chatterbox who woos the secretive felon. Against her is Viola Davis as a mother raising two boys in Ruth’s former home who argues that, as miserable as Ruth is, if it were her Black sons in the system, “they would be dead.” In a role scarcely more than a cameo, Davis cuts through the film’s fog.
The Unforgivable
Rated R for faces damaged by fists, feet and bullets. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
