Sundance Review: 'Exhibiting Forgiveness' Is One of the Best of the Fest

By Sara Clements | Film | February 6, 2024 |

By Sara Clements | Film | February 6, 2024 |

Exhibiting Forgiveness is a literal title. In every frame of the film, there’s a small piece to a greater canvas, one whose theme surrounds a journey to forgiveness. Painter Titus Kaphar’s first feature follows an artist who takes to canvas to heal from childhood trauma, but simply describing Exhibiting Forgiveness as a drama about a tortured artist diminishes the depth of the story crafted. Each layer of paint is a new layer of emotion, leading deeper into an internal struggle for healing and the search to find freedom from the past.

It’s not often that a film’s opening credits need individual praise, but here, they strike a significant cord instantly. As we are welcomed into the art studio of a celebrated painter, the credits are written on the walls, like a piece of his canvas. This studio belongs to Tarrell (André Holland), and everything in this film goes back to his art. He paints in the home he shares with his singer-songwriter wife, Aisha (Andra Day), and their son, Jermaine (Daniel Barriere). In this home of artists, Jherek Bischoff’s score is delicate, like the precise strokes of a paintbrush. Paintings of homes or a child pushing a lawnmower may just seem like a mundane tribute to a neighborhood, but behind each piece is darkness. By painting, Tarrell is trying to silence the trauma of his past. But that’s easier said than done, as night terrors reveal the difficulty of running away from the inescapable.

Traveling back to his childhood home to help his mother, Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), move out, the past hits Tarrell in full force as his father, La’Ron (John Earl Jelks), comes knocking. His relationship with his father is broken. As an addict, he put Tarrell and Joyce through years of hell. But now he’s in recovery…or so he says. Despite it all, Joyce still loves La’Ron, something baffling to Tarrell. She wants the pair to reconcile, forcing this unexpected reunion. La’Ron would be nothing but elated for forgiveness, but can Tarrell give it?

Throughout the film, there’s a question of whether this relationship between father and son can be rebuilt. Kaphar provides great insight into this family to emphasize that forgiveness isn’t the real challenge here at all. It’s forgetting. We can say, “It’s OK,” easily enough, but the wrongs done to us linger. Whether for a week, a month, a year, or longer. For Tarrell, it’s been decades, and he can’t accept that the La’Ron in front of him now isn’t the same man from his childhood. Through intimate framing, the film gets to the root of all of Tarrell’s pain in a confrontational way, an interrogation of his father toward some unreachable closure. The past comes into full frame in flashbacks to understand how difficult it is for the artist to reconcile. He may not be able to put his father’s wrongs to bed, but he can break the cycle of abuse for the sake of his wife and son.

Having its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Exhibiting Forgiveness proved to be one of the festival’s best, both in story and ensemble cast. Emotionally charged performances make the many difficult conversations pierce the heart. The cast makes the film resonate with sincerity, and Holland’s vulnerability lets us right into his creative process, and in turn, allows us to envision his suffering in full color. It’s a stirring exploration of fatherhood, family, healing, and forgiveness that makes the audience think of all the ways we try to overcome our difficulties or erase what’s eating at us. But as Aisha tells Tarrell, “Some things can’t be worked out on canvas”.