Sandra Bullock Is Too Good for the Shallow Thrills of ‘The Unforgivable’

Alci Rengifo

Netflix’s “The Unforgivable” takes an acclaimed British series and reimagines it as a condensed, typical American thriller. Sandra Bullock takes on the kind of role very standard these days on the streaming platform, where a memorable actor gets tossed into a forgettable movie. The idea here seems to be that it’s a suspenseful take on the ongoing housing crisis in America. We definitely need more movies and shows to tackle the subject. This movie isn’t so bad when it sticks to that premise. But like many recent thrillers, a good thing suddenly gets bad when it goes off the rails.

Bullock, looking very dreary, is Ruth Slater, who has just been let out of prison after serving a 20-year sentence for killing a cop while resisting eviction. Making her way back to rainy Seattle, Ruth is introduced to her new, rundown living quarters by parole officer Vincent (Rob Morgan). What Ruth would really like to do his find her younger sister, who was taken away from her during the tragic events that led to Ruth’s incarceration. That sister is now Katie (Aisling Franciosi), an aspiring pianist being raised by two WASP foster parents. Tracing the footsteps of her past, Ruth returns to the old house where it all happened, which is now owned by a lawyer, John Ingram (Vincent D’Onofrio) and his wife, played by Viola Davis. When John learns of Ruth’s story, he will try and help her reconnect with her lost sibling.

“The Unforgivable” is directed by Nora Fingscheidt, who has mostly done film and television in Germany, with the quick pacing and simple visual style of a made for TV movie. Why anyone decided the 2009 series, which was quite acclaimed and won a few awards, needed to be chopped down into a quick-consumption movie is baffling in the Peak TV era. Writers Paul Craig, Hillary Seitz and Courtenay Miles don’t know what to choose from for inclusion in the story, so the narrative feels crammed and hollow at the same time. One angle of the film is how Ruth can’t adjust to life outside of prison because she’s now eternally tagged as a cop killer, this comes across in one absurd scene where a bulky co-worker at a fish-slicing plant knocks her over yelling, “My father’s a cop!” She connects with another plant worker, played by Jon Bernthal, who likes her but technically can’t be near her because he too is a former convict. The story takes that condition of Ruth’s parole too seriously however, because this storyline never goes anywhere and the guy disappears by the third act. 

The more effective moments in “The Unforgivable” deal with Katie’s cryptic flashbacks to the day she was separated from Ruth and how her new parents, played by Richard Thomas and Linda Emond, see no reason to inform her that Ruth has been let out of jail. This could have made for more powerful material, yet it’s reduced to Ruth meeting with the couple and John Ingram acting as referee for one tense scene. What Viola Davis is doing in this movie is hard to pinpoint considering all she does is warn her husband not to let a former convict into their house and then later on give Ruth a ride to a plot point location before driving off to join Bernthal in the film’s character ether.

It can feel as if “The Unforgivable” is too afraid of being a serious film. Why Ruth and Katie were going to be evicted from their home is a sad and relatable story for many struggling Americans, but the movie feels as if audiences are too shallow to watch a real drama about such a subject. Instead, the third act becomes a wild spiral where the two sons of the murdered officer, bicker over what to do about Ruth. The hesitant one becomes convinced after catching the other brother sleeping with his wife. Instead of taking revenge on his backstabbing family members, he decides to go and kidnap Katie in order to lure Ruth into a trap. There were much more convincing twists in “Tiger King.” For Sandra Bullock this will hopefully just be a slight bump on the road . She can definitely carry an action film much better than this, one where she’s also allowed to look more alive and have more dialogue. She’s too good for this one.

“The Unforgivable” begins streaming Dec. 10 on Netflix.