Sandra Bullock shows off her tediously stoic side in Netflix’s The Unforgivable
Adapted from a three-part British miniseries, this thriller/melodrama seems to have lost a lot in translation
Film Reviews Sandra Bullock
As Ruth Slater, a woman who’s just been released from prison after 20 years, Sandra Bullock makes a concerted effort to void her face of all expression. The character’s look is appropriately unglamorous—off-the-rack wardrobe, no makeup, hair generally pulled back in a tight bun that suggests severity—but Bullock seems to fear that showing any hint of emotion would amount to a betrayal of Ruth’s inner pain. She lashes out in anger when provoked but otherwise might as well be The Woman With No Name, squinting the world down with a cheroot poking from one corner of her mouth. It’s a superficial, one-dimensional conception of someone who’s been hardened by suffering and sorrow, setting the tone for a risibly unbelievable melodrama.
As it happens, The Unforgivable is a remake of Unforgiven—not Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winner, as Bullock seems to mistakenly believe, but a 2009 British miniseries with the same title (which Netflix has understandably opted to tweak slightly). In theory, the two should be roughly equivalent: Unforgiven consisted of three 45-minute episodes, running in total only about 20 minutes longer than this movie’s two hours. Most of the plot elements and characters have been duplicated, too, though the action’s been transplanted from Yorkshire to the Seattle area. Something went seriously awry in the process, given how acclaimed the miniseries was. At the same time, however, the film’s least believable aspects seem to come straight from the source.
Those don’t emerge for a while (episode three was quite the bombshell), and The Unforgivable flatlines long before then. Part of the problem may be the nature of Ruth’s crime: 20 years earlier, she’d shot and killed a county sheriff who’d shown up at her house to serve eviction papers. That’s what’s unforgivable, in this context—not just murder, but specifically the murder of a law enforcement officer, which here provokes universal disgust and revulsion at a level usually reserved for child molestation. Ruth’s probation officer (Rob Morgan) more or less counsels her to accept being a permanent societal outcast, which is more implausible now than it might have been even two years ago.
Ruth robotically resumes her life on the outside, taking a job gutting fish (she’s a carpenter by trade, but the gig she’d lined up suddenly vanishes when the boss learns that she’s a cop killer) and sleeping in a dormitory-style facility for former inmates. But she devotes nearly every conscious, non-working moment to tracking down her younger sister, Katie (The Nightingale’s Aisling Franciosa), who’s been adopted by another family. This aspect of the story had already required some finessing—there needed to be a reason why a five-year-old girl, at the time of the incident, had no family apart from Ruth—and casting Bullock necessarily created a massive three-decade age gap between the siblings. (Suranne Jones, who played the original Ruth, was 31.) Not impossible, of course, but rather unusual; simply making Ruth Katie’s mother instead would have been less jarring.
In any case, Katie, now a college student, has only a few jagged memories of her early childhood and considers her adoptive parents and sister to be her true family. She also hasn’t been told what her sister did, nor given any of the zillion letters that Ruth wrote her from prison. So there’s potential conflict a-plenty there, set in motion when Ruth visits her old house and meets its current owners, one of whom (Vincent D’Onofrio) conveniently happens to be a high-powered attorney. After the requisite bout of disgust and revulsion, he agrees to help her try to make contact. Meanwhile, the adult sons (Thomas Guiry and Will Pullen) of the murdered sheriff, livid that Ruth has been freed, plot their revenge, which they decide will be an eye for an eye: They’ll kill somebody that Ruth loves. Guess who?
There’s a big revelation buried deep underneath all of this intrigue, which director Nora Fingscheidt (System Crasher, likewise on Netflix) and the film’s three credited screenwriters none-too-subtly signal by providing only fleeting, chaotic images of the murder until very near the end. What actually happened—as conceived by Sally Wainwright, who wrote the miniseries—doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but perhaps the tale was originally told with such emotional richness and nervewracking tension that nobody much cared.
Here, everything’s so flatly emphatic that each story beat feels mechanistic. Neither Ruth nor anybody else (with the minor, welcome exception of a potential love interest played by Jon Bernthal) feels like a credible human being driven by recognizable impulses; even a titan like Viola Davis, as the attorney’s considerably less empathetic wife, can’t transcend her character’s straitjacketed narrative function. The whole thing comes across as a movie star’s anti-vanity project, just an opportunity for Bullock to demonstrate her ostensible range. Okay, she can be hard and stoic and affectless. Noted.
66 Comments
“just an opportunity for Bullock to demonstrate her ostensible range.” sometimes I am sucker for a masterclass in acting though, especially with Bullock paired up with Viola. Is it weird I was genuinely confused with what the plot was in the trailer that it made me want to watch it?
Well, there’s a reason why they said “ostensible” range. At a certain point, making yourself as dowdy and hardened and un-vain as possible is another kind of vanity.
oh dang ostensible didn’t mean what I had thought it meant. I still think Bullock has range though.
LOL this reminds me of a former coworker who fancied herself also a freelance writer and on her business card she had written “stellar writing—penultimate results.” I’ll never forget explaining to her what “penultimate” meant (she thought it meant “better than the ultimate” (and not “next to last”)) and I was just pissing myself laughing so hard that when she still didn’t believe me, I asked to keep the card and she finally realized I was serious (and sadly, didn’t let me keep the card).
this won’t be too specific but I feel you: I knew somebody who was extremely vain and snotty about her shakespeare savvy. She was in one of his things back at college and repeatedly mispronounced a particular word…nobody told her until the run of the show was over.
I know a guy who’s an insufferably pretentious, and terrible, theatre critic. All his reviews are bad, but there’s one where he completely misidentifies an element of the play as a Chekov’s Gun, which is especially frustrating as there’s an actual Chekov’s Gun in there at a different point.
and it’s not the most difficult concept
okay i also had to explain to a writer that penultimate didn’t mean ‘most ultimate’, so that’s funny.my favorite misspelled turn of phrase came in 7th grade – my friend wrote ‘self esteem’ as ‘self of steam’. it’s stuck with me forever.
my wife’s former boss used to speak of “mute points” (not moot) and the first time I heard it was like fingernails on a chalkboard. She is now a SVP at a major pharma company and still uses this term freely on social media including LinkedIn, where I am shocked no one has busted her for it (although knowing her I suspect someone has busted her for it but she assumes *they’re* wrong).
Ha! My boss says ‘mute point’ too. At least I am in a tech field so his knowledge of idioms is not crucial, but we were in a meeting with a vendor so I couldn’t say anything.
You could have said something like “you ignorant chunk of shit…go throw yourself out the window”. Everyone would have laughed thinking you were joking. Only you and your boss would have known the truth.
I’ve received many a lecture on how I’m wrong about “moot” points. It’s “mute”, by God, and nothing will convince them otherwise.
I generally don’t get in a twist over word misuse but that one always grates on me for some reason. Jesse Jackson gets it!
It’s a doggy dog world, man.
Irregardless, I think people should speak English more good.
But it’s like flammable and inflammable!
This seemed to be a really common mistake about twenty years ago. The word must have been seen somewhere and it spread? I don’t know – both in print and casual use. But now it’s pretty much gone. Of course, English doesn’t HAVE a word or even phrase which means what people want “penultimate” to mean. The French do: “ne plus ultra”. Learn another language, people
“How can you trust the French? They have no word for entrepreneur.” – George W. Bush
I happen to run across “penultimate” mostly in reviews of TV series – some comment on how the penultimate episode sets up the story for the final one. Every time I read it in that context, I wonder how much sense it doesn’t make to those who think it means “extra extra special” – and then it’s not… (necessarily).
I love that anecdote so much I want to marry it and settle down in the country to raise its children.
You want to fuck an anecdote?
right? as I was typing it I kept thinking to myself the same thing I have thought for the last 10-15 years since it happened–”godDAMN I wish I had played it cooler and kept that business card because NO ONE will believe me LOL”
I can’t for the life of me find a spoiler description of what this third episode twist was in the original series. Can someone provide a link?
This is the twist in the UK version, it seems likely it remains the samehttps://gingesbecray.com/unforgiven-s1e3-recap/
Okay, that’s pretty much exactly what I was expecting. Thanks!
https://gingesbecray.com/unforgiven-s1e3-recap/
Is it about how she was married to a white nationalist neo nazi for years?
Great, another movie made just so the lead actor can do a blatant audition tape for The Emoji Movie 2.
When you’ve Botoxed your face into a rigid mask, these are the roles you can play.
I’m confused by this review. Is she looking for her little sister, or her daughter? “She also hasn’t been told what her birth mother did, nor given any of the zillion letters that Ruth wrote her from prison’.Or is this a Chinatown thing?
Sister. That was my error (though I’m gonna blame the fact that usually when one actress is 57 and the other is 28, they’re not playing sisters).
28? That’s shocking, she looks 18. Making it all even more jarring everytime it’s mentioned those two are sisters.
“My sister! *slap* My daughter! *slap* My niece! *slap* My dental hygienist!”
I’m confused by this review. Is she looking for her little sister, or her daughter? “She also hasn’t been told what her birth mother did, nor given any of the zillion letters that Ruth wrote her from prison’.Or is this a Chinatown thing?
You know what we really need? A movie in which Sandra Bullock gets a really good fucking…and not in a ‘The Net’ kind of way. The way in which she takes it up the ass from a huge nigger and then has to swallow when he blows off in her face. That’ll show the acting range of Sandra Bullock.
Ideally Netflix would offer the original as well as this so it can be seen what Sally Wainwright originally intended. Just hope they don’t go on to adapt Happy Valley.
This is yet-another not-friendly reminder that Netflix needs to die a slow death.
On the one hand, most people aren’t exactly chill with killing police officers, but on the other hand they really lean into it for some reason here. Like of all people, an attorney’s black wife should understand why someone might feel less than hospitable to the police.
I’m guessing in England it would be exceedingly rare?
Regardless, a teenaged girl shooting at a bunch of cops breaking into her home would probably garner some public understanding, especially 20 years on.
The very first sentence, by God. This place needs an editor.As Ruth Slater, a woman who’s just been released from prison after 20 years, Sandra Bullock makes a concerted effort to void her face of all expression.
Nope. Sandra Bullock cannot make a concerted effort. She can make a concentrated effort. But one person cannot make a concerted effort. “Concerted” means “acting in concert together”, and requires multiple people. A team can make a concerted effort. A cast. A city. A duo. But one person cannot.
“I contain multitudes” – Sandra Bullock
I had a very intelligent, well-educated boyfriend long ago who would say he’d made a concerted effort to do something. He meant concentrated effort! But, ah well.
I’m only one man
You forgot a period. Worth every cent you earn, I see!
Internet comments have different standards than professionally published material. You won’t see me correcting anyone’s freaking comments here
She’s got more than one facial muscle, no?(I take your point, but that battle’s close to being lost. You can gnash your teeth about it, but language evolves contrary to etymology all the time; neither “awful” nor “terrible” originally signified “bad.”)
Since Bullock is clearly three Oscars in a trench coat, “concerted” is just fine.
Good stuff.
“Language evolves” is the most laughable excuse for being too lazy to use words correctly.
Many dictionaries already define concerted to (also) mean something like “done with great seriousness or deliberation.” Cambridge for instance has it as the word’s second definition. I’m on board with trying to stop language from “evolving” too rapidly and too ignorantly, but this is a case where the evolution has basically already occurred, like it or not.
literally he did not use it incorrectly, it’s in every dictionary
In my dictionary, the second definition of “concerted” is “done with great effort.” and it cites the phrase “concerted effort” as an example.
From American Heritage dictionary:
A single person making a “concerted effort” is a often used phrase and in any english dictionary you care to look it up in with that definition.
Back to Life is the superior post prison life BBC show.
So she would be an ACAB hero in Seattle, right? Oooh now I want to see an update of Playboy of the Western World where the everyone thinks the main guy killed a cop so they make him a hero
Has anyone ever actually seen Kevin Hart and Sandra Bullock in a room together at the same time?
(Suranne Jones, who played the original Ruth, was 31.)Suranne Jones, for those in the know, is Britain’s reigning queen of “this sort of thing”. You could fill half of Netflix just remaking UK Suranne Jones miniserieses.
and she’s in one of the best Doctor Who episodes of all time!
The header image is sending me straight to the uncanny valley. I cannot convince my brain that what I am seeing is an actual person
At first I thought she’s made some terrible plastic surgery mistake a la Nicole Kidman, but I think it’s just a weird shot.
You can’t convince me someone didn’t cast a Ditto who used transform on Sandra Bullock
I think we need to shake the idea that shows with prestige are necessarily well written, in particular thinking a successful British show is a marker of pedigree beyond being a successful drama/melodrama most of the time. After watching Broadchurch (the British one) I was struck that while it was well-acted, the plot was terrible–and while this doesn’t sound like a great adaptation, I kinda don’t think there should be any expectation that the original is necessarily good at this stuff either.
It seems to be an example of “just because it’s depressing, it doesn’t mean it’s deep”.
Sandra Bullock’s best dramatic acting was in her shower scene with Chelsea Handler https://pagesix.com/2012/10/16/watch-naked-sandra-bullock-slaps-chelsea-handler-in-shower/
Is this review suggesting the cold-blooded murder of a law enforcement officer isn’t deserving of derision??