Netflix’s The Unforgivable movie review: Is it worth a watch?

The Unforgivable is the latest Netflix drama that is led by Sandra Bullock as a woman named Ruth Slater who goes to prison after killing a cop. The movie sees Ruth attempting to rebuild her life after serving 20 years for this “unforgivable” crime. Well, the movie is quite unforgivable ,too.

The film is based on a British miniseries Unforgiven which tells the story of an ex-con released in Snohomish, Wisconsin after a 20-year sentence in prison and starts looking for a sister she left behind. From there, the film features two subplots.

The first is Ruth trying to find her sister, and the second follows the son of a cop stalking Ruth and planning her murder because he doesn’t feel Ruth served enough time.

The Unforgivable wastes great talent

The Unforgivable also stars D’Onofrio, Bernthal, Richard Thomas, Linda Emond, Aisling Franciosi, Rob Morgan and Viola Davis, all veteran actors for which the film wastes for the most part. The film is edited and structured in a way that feels complex. To be honest, the whole movie feels like a gritty Oscar bait. However, it fails to do so as the story did not need to be that way.

Davis and D’Onofrio star as Liz and John Ingram, a husband and wife team of corporate lawyers who live in the so called murder house years after the incident took place. Liz, despite the story’s prominence in newspaper headlines, didn’t know about the house. And John somehow lets this depressed-looking, complete stranger into their house based on a lie, which only speaks to the careless nature of these new homeowners. It wasn’t until Ruth learns about John being a lawyer that she decides to tell him the truth to ask for his help in legally locating her missing adoptive sister. This was followed by a fair share of lawyer drama.

The Unforgivable tries so hard to elicit sympathy from viewers towards Ruth, but fails to provide any reason whatsoever to do so. She simply wants to reach the sister she left behind who probably was too young back then to even remember her, so what good would this even do? The film also offers flashbacks throughout that are done in such a cliché soft focus that only make their collective meaning unclear in the grand scheme.

In the end, the characters were just wasted and the plot was thin. The film’s 2-hour running time leaves not much in the way of space for any substance, except for a lot of soft focus flashbacks.

That being said, The Unforgivable as a film overall isn’t necessarily too bad despite everything that has been said, the audience may find something to enjoy here. At the end of the day, it’s less than 2 hours so for those looking to waste their free time, this film may very well be for them. Personally, the film is likely to leave viewers with little to remember or even care about long after the credits roll.

The Unforgivable is now streaming on Netflix.