Movie Review: Exhibiting Forgiveness

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A-

An incredibly moving and thought-provoking drama. 

This movie is about an artist who is working on an art exhibition on his childhood, especially the unpleasant memories of his crack addicted abusive father. However, he must face his past even more than he expected to when his father returns into his life, now a changed man of God. 

This movie is in many ways a meditation on forgiveness. It explores what it truly means to forgive someone and if that is even possible with someone, who made your life a living hell. There are no easy answers here and the film never turns into an afterschool special type of lesson. We are left wondering whether we could ever forgive such a man ourselves, especially during a very disturbing flashback scene. One moment in this film will always stay in my mind. It is a bit of dialogue where the main character's father tells a story that the grandfather pointed a gun at the grandmother's head and then went on to claim he was a "good man." This leaves us wondering what exactly a good man is and can anyone who has ever had this dark of a moment be a good man in spite of it. Again, there is no easy or clear answer and that just makes the moment all the more disturbing. This film also explores just what it means to forgive. Does it mean to fully absolve a person of what they have done to you, to let that person back into your life or to simply let go of your anger so you can move on with your life? Perhaps the answer is more complicated than any of these. These are all questions that will stay in your mind long after the movie finishes. 

As well as being very thought provoking, this is also an incredibly emotional movie. The characters all feel so real to us. None of them are treated in a simplistic matter but they are all very human in both their flaws and their virtues. Our main character is a man we feel for as soon as the movie starts. As the film goes on, we begin to care for him on an even deeper level. Our heart truly breaks for him during many scenes and this emotional connection is what keeps us glued to the screen. The incredible performances by André Holland as our main character and John Earl Jelks as the father makes this film all the more powerful. 

This is a must-watch.