Forgiven

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Review: Getafilm.com

Forgiven arrives at a time in this country when accusations of racism and power are beginning to enter almost every national conversation. About education, about health care, about taxes, about unemployment and, most recently, about civility. I’m a little surprised prison populations and the justice system haven’t received any attention in 2009, but if Forgiven hits the right chord it has the potential to be a catalyst. I don’t think that’s Fitzgerald’s motive, however, so it’s unfair to peg Forgiven as an “issue” movie, but rather one that attempts to test a viewer’s sympathy for its characters as they stumble through a difficult situation – a situation that requires conditional forgiveness for unconditionally terrible crimes. Fitzgerald and Hornsby offer strong performances, but the acting in general is a bit uneven, with a few strained, emotional outbursts that unfortunately reminded me of the overacting in 21 Grams.

And while I ultimately found the ending to be a little more disturbing than it may have been designed to be, I think that caused Forgiven to linger for a few days, challenging me to consider the motives and justifications of its character’s actions. I’m blessed not to have yet experienced a “wrong” in my life that would beg the question of forgiveness at this level (i.e., rape, murder, war crimes, imprisonment, etc.), but this movie in some way makes me consider how I would act under such circumstances. And in doing that – in asking challenging questions and not necessarily offering easy answers, Forgiven achieves its goal.

Movie Waffle: Forigven – A Review

When Donald Rumsfeld said, “Stuff happens” what he meant was: “I don’t make mistakes”. That’s why everyone got so pissed at Rummy. It’s the arrogance of power that provokes violence in the powerless. Hubris wouldn’t be a flaw if not for other people getting screwed. But it’s tough. Power secludes. If you’re a person who commands respect, how much empathy can you have with those humiliated by your decisions? The new drama, Forgiven, shows us two hells: one caused by not admitting a mistake, and the other caused by revenge. It’s the same hell for both men. They’re each fired by pride.

In North Carolina, District Attorney Peter Miles (Paul Fitzgerald) is about to run for Senate. He’s a straight-backed, family-values guy, full of quiet certainty. In the past he’s had fun with drink and drugs, but now he’s all about public service. Only – there’s a thorn in his side. A man he put on Death Row for murder six years ago (Russell Hornsby) has been reprieved. The press say: Miles erred. Feet of clay threaten to stomp on the intended Senator’s campaign. Miles is adamant: he did the right thing, given the information he had at hand. He speaks of how: “this is not a time for self-criticism”. And everyone agrees – at least, everyone in Peter Miles’ orbit.

Writer/director Paul Fitzgerald plays Miles like a rolled-up flag. There’s a stiff, patriotic, do-right attitude to his performance. He looks like the captain of the debate club, or a wedding-cake groom. You get the feeling he’s stopped asking risky questions about life. It’s not that he lacks intelligence, but he’s happy not to know things. When a black strategist on his campaign tells him he’s prejudiced, he responds like she’d insulted his mother. There’s a self-protecting guileless quality in Miles, excusing him of wrongs he’s blind to. He doesn’t think of himself as a racist, therefore he’s not a racist.

Russell Hornsby is tasked with educating Miles. He looks easily pained, so his task is made more difficult. Hornsby has a Terrence Howard, kiss-you physicality. His eyes look hurt but his mouth is lithe. Ronald Bradler (the man he plays) is a man who knows his own worth, made to plead. And though he’s good with words, there are admissions he can’t make. Prison is like a match-head in him. Every time he thinks of it, he spits flame. Bradler’s tragedy is that he can’t be who he was before prison. In every job interview, every intimate moment, he’s an ex-con. Worse than that – he’s been made a child. When Miles tells him, “You’ve got a lot of anger and that’s understandable…” the whole movie seems to stop for Hornsby’s reply: “Is it understandable or do you understand it?” Spoken like a healer.

What happens when it’s clear Miles does not understand is terrible. What Bradler does next, no-one can excuse. But his actions are central to why Forgiven works, not because they switch who is wronged and who is guilty, but because they show us the effect of Miles’ hubris. The man he sent to prison for six years is wrecked because of Miles’ mistake. One mother has already lost a son. Miles’ decision – quiet and detached as it was – destroyed somebody. He could only justify his actions because he couldn’t imagine he might be wrong. The movie isn’t about erasing sin through forgiveness; it’s about asking forgiveness as a way to confess.

When President Obama spoke of white police officers behaving “stupidly” in the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., he outraged a lot of powerful people. It seemed as if Obama wasn’t aware of the golden rule of politics: preserve your own interest first. By saying, in effect, that: “yes, racism exists in America” and “non-white people are worse off for it”, Obama cast the objectivity of the law into doubt. In Forgiven, Paul Fitzgerald plays a man who would have starred dumbfounded as Obama (seemingly) called him the bad guy. Like most people without prejudice, he’s good at lying to himself.

Lizzy Dishes…

I had a conversation last week with a man who was trapped. Trapped by his decisions, trapped by circumstances, trapped by obligations. There was no way out. I could see the the fear on his face, the stress. There was no way out. I felt it in my gut, for a small piece of time, what he felt. Except I could get away from it. I thought about cooking dinner for my family. About my upcoming trip to Greece. Snap. I was away from the trapped feeling. I was free. But this man, he was not free. And I both feared for him and feared him.

The movie Forgiven is about a man in such a circumstance. Ronald Bradler (Russell Hornsby) is about to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. With six minutes to spare, he is pardoned. But the stigma of a felony is still there. He can’t find a job, he can’t make a living. There is no way out.

The district attorney (Paul Fitzgerald, who also wrote and directed) who convicted Bradler is running for the senate, and who, propelled by community expectations and drive, made some mistakes of his own on the case. He, too, trapped by circumstances, made a slave of public perception. The DA and the felon meet and what happens is not good. In fact, it’s heart-wrenching, tragic and I cried for a long time.

The film has that independent film edge to it, the footage seems raw and real. The actors do a fine job – and it’s a powerful story. To be honest, I’m having a hard time writing about the film itself instead of the storyline. Each of the characters were real to me and I felt that I was witnessing something real, which made it very difficult to watch, given the subject matter.

I suppose feeling a part of the film is a testament to the filmmaking. Isn’t that the point of films, to pull the audience in, to feel connected to the characters, to cry when unspeakable tragedy and horror encroaches on the screen? On all counts, I felt a part of this film. Its message is strong – and hard to look in the eyes.

This isn’t a “hey it’s Friday, let’s hang out and watch a movie” kind of a movie. It’s more of a rainy-Sunday-afternoon-I-want-to-change-the-world kind of a movie. And you will want to change the world after you see Forgiven. When I finished watching the movie, I spent the next few hours dreaming about working on The Innocence Project, as a lawyer, as an assistant, anything. I dreamed about having a job that can take away the hopeless feeling – of employing people like Ronald, or maybe being a counselor. I could help. In some way.

Then. It was time for dinner. And life went on as it normally does. And I went back to my job and dreaming about my vacation, my mind hosting a seed for change somewhere, that at some point will grow into an idea of what I can do to help. But right now, I don’t know.

by writer/director Paul Fitzgerald

In 2003 I wrote the script for Forgiven. I was motivated to do so because then, as now, there were stories breaking all over the country, on what seemed like a weekly basis, about wrongly convicted persons being found innocent of crimes for which they had been previously found guilty. As I began to delve into research about this issue, one thing caught my attention: almost without fail, in each case, there was no formal apology from any agency of government that was involved in these extreme and tragic miscarriages of justice. And so I set out to write a story about apology. And forgiveness. And what those two things mean, if anything, in the relationship between individuals and their organizing civic structures.

The movie was shot in the fall of 2004 in Wilmington, NC, in eighteen days on Super 16, with an amazing cast and crew, funded by money raised through friends and family. In 2005 we stopped and started with post production until the movie was complete. I nearly had a nervous breakdown that year, thinking I’d brought disaster, ruin and infamy upon myself for having tried to make a film that I thought often times along the way — sucked.

And then the day after Thanksgiving in 2005 we learned we’d been accepted into the Sundance Film Festival and had, moreover, been nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Sundance was Sundance. The movie did not sell. The star rose, the sky fell, etc. And we carried on, taking the movie to festivals throughout the US and Europe, into 2007. And then silence enveloped us. And my producer and I sat there with a film that, though certainly some people didn’t get, had also somehow managed to bring some people to tears. Audience members greeting me after screenings, saying the film had changed their life. Emails from strangers saying they would never think about the death penalty or race or the American justice system the same way again.

I mostly drank for a while after that. And decided filmmaking was an idiot’s calling. Or at least the making of the kind of films I seem to want to make. Or maybe I just thought I was an idiot.

And then the world changed. Thomas Friedman proclaimed it flat. Apparently the interweb was here to say. And in the upshot, for independent filmmakers, the audience became not so much limited to those located near a theatre near you…but basically everyone on the planet who had access to the web.

And so we got our act together. And here we are. I hope you watch the film. I set out with the ridiculous premise of hoping to change the world with this movie. In the end, I came to realize I’d just made a movie. Still…