FILM REVIEW: The Unforgivable—An Experience in Living Trauma and Life Demands

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

     The Unforgivable, featuring lead producer Sandra Bullock in the role of Ruth Slater, supported by a superb ensemble cast, is an adaptation of British TV writer Sally Wainwright’s 2009 miniseries, Unforgiven. The drama unfolds in the Northwest—Washington—a dark, gritty Seattle and the bone-chilling cold of Snohomish. Writers Peter Craig, Hillary Seitz, and Courtenay Miles, and German director Nora Fingscheidt (acclaimed for her 2019 breakout film, System Crasher) concentrate on class distinction, showing in vivid detail why breaking out of the prison of poverty seems virtually impossible. 

     The finest gift this skillful union offers is insight into the jolting, complex integration of traumatic episodes in order that we are finally free to address them. The events in Ruth Slater’s life are written and enacted in a way that viewers actually experience how the mind blocks horrifying realities, always with gaps, confusion, and repetition, until one is strong enough to face what actually happened. Drawn into Ruth’s world, we are with her as she pieces together events to make sense of them, and there we stay until Ruth (and we!) are able to connect dots, assemble a seemingly inexplicable puzzle, face truths, and in doing so leave an internal prison.

     Through this process, The Unforgivable ensemble demonstrates what we in our profession know: life holds no easy answers, first impressions can be deceiving, and one is wise to reach our own conclusions about another—and their character—and not rely on what we may or may not have been told. Further, one is not destroyed by circumstances, but instead, by our seeming impotence to address them.  

Following is plot framing, without spoilers.

     We first meet Ruth imprisoned for 20 years and paroled early for good behavior. Following her father’s suicide, she is imprisoned for killing a police officer, who has tried to force her and her 5-year-old sister Katie (Neli Kastrinos) from their home and separate them. Ruth has cared for Katie since her mother’s death in childbirth. You will not forget the scene where Katie relishes her breakfast, as Ruth strokes her face, tells her how much she loves her, and turns her chair so Katie will not view her arrest.

     Upon release from prison, Ruth’s parole officer Vincent Cross (Rob Morgan) makes it clear that she is to have no contact with her sister, who has been adopted by a loving suburban middle-class couple, Michael (Richard Thomas) and Rachel Malcolm (Linda Emond). Still, finding Katie is what Ruth lives for. Although none of her letters to her sister have been responded to, this unrelenting passion has protected the hope and determination that have kept her alive for 20 years.

     At the time of Ruth’s release, Katie, now Katherine (Aisling Franciosi), is distracted while driving. Her car crashes. Katherine’s younger sister Emily (Emma Nelson), essential to her healing in every way, plays a prominent role in the unfolding drama, as do the dead officer’s two sons, Keith Whelan (Thomas Guiry) and his seemingly more balanced younger brother Steve (Will Pullen), manipulated and controlled by their mother, Hannah (Jessica McLeod), and out for blood.

     Economically and professionally, the most privileged characters we meet are an interracial couple, John (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Liz Ingram (the magnificent Viola Davis), and their two young sons. The Ingram family lives in their lovingly restored home where Ruth and Katie’s tragedies began. Ruth is drawn to the property, where she sees a family with all she ever longed to share with her sister. Davis’s scenes, though limited (how I longed for more!), are pivotal and Oscar material. While the primary focus of The Unforgivable is the relationship between class and poverty, Liz Ingram insists that viewers also squarely face the impact of racism within our penal system and every nuance of our society and our lives. John, a highly successful, well-connected attorney, believes he must help Ruth. Liz, furiously opposed to John’s involvement, offers truth: If their two sons ever killed a policeman, they would be dead.

     Some viewers of the film have criticized The Unforgivable for offering personal connections and events seen as unlikely and implausible, as well as the many characters, circumstances, and directions viewers are asked to wrap our minds around. However, I see these factors as strengths. This film’s creative team offers script as metaphor—a shout-out, or perhaps a scream—a warning of the necessity of developing the grit to face unpredictable, dangerous, and surreal aspects of life: Who among us could have forseen a seemingly endless pandemic, or those who view the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection as peaceful protest—and the multitude of divergent characters and complexities involved?

     The writing, direction, and acting in The Unforgivable reveal still another truth. Although brutality and life-threatening behaviors and attitudes are contagious, there are heroes among us who can and will rise above self-serving perceptions and behaviors. It also shows that, despite all, despair is never an option.  

SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD, whose private and pro bono clinical social work practice is in Philadelphia, is a certified group psychotherapist and family life educator. She is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (2004) and the Social Worker of the Year (2018) from the Pennsylvania chapter of NASW, and the 2013 NASW Media Award for Best Article. In 2018, she was one of five graduates of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice selected for the school’s inaugural Hall of Fame. SaraKay is the author of Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work (2nd Edition).