The Forgiven (2022) Dir. John Michael McDonagh

Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain star as a couple whose marriage problems take a turn for the worse when they are involved in a fatal car accident that sees a local Moroccan boy killed during their journey to a friends’ party. Once they arrive at the luscious bash, the authorities are called and the victim’s father (Ismael Kanater) pays them a visit. He demands Fiennes go with him as an act of cultural penance and to pay his respects – and the seedy Fiennes assumes he will want some compensatory cash too. Whilst the husband heads off wondering if he is going to be kidnapped (or killed), Chastain remains at a party filled to the brim with debauched antics, adultery and horrendous racism towards the local servants.

The dark drama sadly comes to a sudden halt at times as it’s high and “weighty” aims are contrasted with its orgy of unlikeable party guests, whilst the unknown actions of Fiennes at the crash site and Chastain’s shallow wife make us suspicious of the two leads. The film has few characters to latch on to, which forces the viewer to question everyone’s motives, which I’m sure is intentional. But that also means they come across as aloof and irritating, which makes it incredibly frustrating as there’s no light to contrast the darkness of the narrative.

The script has its moments and attempts to explore some serious issues but tonally the film is all over the place. This leads to a story where guilt, responsibility and cultural customs are explored but rather transparently and it only scratches the surface of an interesting premise. The moral ambiguities become wishy-washy when no one appears to be learning any lessons and whilst Fiennes delivers a great performance, Chastain is entirely wasted as the scorned wife cliché. A film of nihilism dressed up as redemption, there are things to enjoy, especially Ismael Kanater’s tempestuous grieving father, but it’s unforgiveable that it wastes its potential with a dull delivery of a rather dreary drama.

★★½

Fall (2022) Dir. Scott Mann

An exciting and tense death scene opens Scott Mann’s new thrill-seeking film Fall as we are introduced to rock climber Hunter (Virginia Gardner) and her friend Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) whose husband falls from a cliff to his demise. Jump to a year later and Becky has cut herself off from the world and so Hunter encourages Becky to return to her former hobby and climb a 2000ft TV tower in the desert with her. As they succeed in ascending to the tower’s top, the corroded ladder attached to its side tumbles to the desert floor leaving the duo stuck. Having told no one of their plans (oops) and with a phone without a signal (of course) and a drone with no power (oh no!) the women are trapped with no obvious way out.

But these tropes are necessary story beats to set up the scenario and provide appropriate obstacles for our characters to face. And the girls’ attempts to resolve these conundrums help portray our leads as rational and shrewd and also make it compelling to watch. As the girls face starvation, a whole host of personal secrets are aired and their situation is made all the worse by circling vultures as their dehydration causes brain fog and delusions.

Director Mann has cut his action chops on dull genre flicks Heist and Final Score but here he’s brilliantly taken a tiny (by Hollywood’s standards) $3 million budget and made it look 10 times the size. Edited well by Rob Hall, the film’s exhilarating survival sequences – filmed on a much shorter recreation tower atop a very high mountain – are mostly CGI free which adds a real sense of jeopardy to the situation. The actresses do incredibly well with the physical nature of their roles but also add subtlety and intelligence. In the end, Fall doesn’t re-write the rulebook for one-location thrillers but with two terrific performances and a host of suspenseful sequences to hang them on, it rises well above the usual fare of the genre.

★★★★

Michael Sales