Exhibiting Forgiveness (Christian Movie Review)
Exhibiting Forgiveness is an honest, emotionally raw, challenging exploration of trauma and the spiritual freedom that can be found only on the other side of forgiveness.
About the Film
“Some things can’t be worked out on a canvas.” As imperfect people living in a broken world, pain and suffering are an inevitable part of the human experience. Art may not remedy all our real-world hurts, but Exhibiting Forgiveness shows the important role it can play in our journey toward healing. This film offers an honest, emotionally raw, challenging exploration of trauma and the spiritual freedom that can be found only on the other side of forgiveness.
Exhibiting Forgiveness is the directorial debut for American artist Titus Kaphar. It tells a semi-autobiographical story of his strained relationship with his father. The movie’s title is fitting, as the film is presented to audiences with the same underlying philosophy as an art exhibit. Kaphar paints a complicated story onto the canvas and then invites audiences to contemplate its meaning. Several clear themes emerge (namely, forgiveness), but the film refrains from offering didactic messages. What audiences “get” out of the story may depend on how patiently and deeply they’re willing to consider it.
Beyond being an intensely personal story, the film is also a deeply spiritual one. The movie is “faith-based” insofar as God, the Bible, and spirituality play a central role, but it has more edge—emotional honesty and harsher language—than many of the “churchier” films in the genre. Narratively, Exhibiting Forgiveness shares some similarities with the Kendrick Brothers’ latest film, The Forge. Both movies explore the experience of young black men who are struggling to overcome childhood trauma and forgive their fathers. Yet the films navigate that healing journey in starkly different ways.
The Forge offers a straightforward and encouraging message that “healing is just a quick prayer away.” It emphasizes the freedom that comes from forgiveness but largely glosses over the challenges that must be overcome along the way. Exhibiting Forgiveness also affirms that forgiveness is the necessary path to spiritual healing, but it paints a far more nuanced picture of that process. Even when forgiveness is offered, fractured relationships are not easily mended. Kaphar may not offer the immediate comfort the Kendrick Brothers do, but there is a different sort of encouragement available in the film’s honest complexity. We must forgive those who hurt us, but doing so is rarely easy. If it were, forgiveness would never be withheld.
The film’s rich themes are elevated by a talented cast. Andra Day and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor both give heartfelt performances as the story’s two most prominent women, but the heart of the film is the relationship dynamic between father and son. André Holland is superb in the central role as Tarrell (the narrative representation of Titus Kaphar himself), giving a nuanced performance that captures the emotional battle raging inside him between the love and joy he feels for his wife and child and the repressed anguish and brokenness caused by his relationship with his father. John Earl Jelks is also great as the estranged father, a broken man who has been transformed by Jesus.
Exhibiting Forgiveness is a meaningful film but not necessarily an “entertaining” one. The story struggles with pacing at times, and there is little levity to lighten the weighty story. It feels as though the filmmaker is primarily using the movie to address profoundly personal struggles rather than to entertain audiences. It lacks a crowd-pleasing resolution or easy application, forgoing glossy Hollywood-ization in favor of a story that is more authentic than many films are willing to tell.
Overall, Exhibiting Forgiveness is an interesting film that has something meaningful to say. At one point, an overwhelmed character exclaims, “Relationships are hard. They’re hard.” Life can be difficult, and Exhibiting Forgiveness doesn’t sugarcoat that reality. But neither does it shy away from pointing viewers to the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, forgiveness is hard. But there is freedom in forgiving others as God has forgiven us. Titus Kaphar may put his own journey onto the canvas, but like all great art, the end result reflects universal human truths that will resonate with each viewer in a personal way.
For Consideration
Language: There is heavy profanity throughout. By my count, there was 19 F-words, as well as s— (x11), d— (x3), a— (x6), h— (x1), and 6 uses of “God” or “OMG.” The N-word is also said 5-6 times.
Violence: An abusive husband pushes his wife into a mirror, causing it to shatter. The woman falls to the ground unconscious. A man beats another man from behind with a blunt object.
Sexuality: None.
Other: A character is addicted to crack, although his habit is only discussed, not shown.
Engage The Film
Why We Forgive
*Spoilers below*
Tarrell is tormented by his past, haunted by frequent nightmares, and burdened with anger toward his father. He doesn’t believe his father deserves forgiveness, and he doesn’t recognize that he has become the victim of his own unforgiveness. His bitterness is tearing him apart and harming his relationships with his wife and child.
His mother encourages him, “The Bible says, if you don’t forgive others of their past sins, then you can’t be forgiven. That’s the Bible, son.” He responds, “I don’t care what the Bible says. I want to know what you say.” From a strictly human perspective, forgiveness doesn’t make sense. It is unmerited, and Tarrell struggles to comprehend how his mother continues to love and forgive his father, despite how he treated her.
Eventually, his father tells him, “It’s not good to live with all of that inside of you. You’ve got to forgive so that God can take that away. You need to pray.” Tarrell eventually grasps why his mother was able to forgive when he could not: “I think I understand it now. It wasn’t about you…. I need to move on…. I forgive you for what you did to me. But I’ll never forget what you did to my momma.”
Biblically, we are to forgive because we were forgiven (Ephesians 4:32). We cannot undo the past. Tarrell makes it clear that he is not ready for a relationship with his father: “The future belongs to [my family] …. You took the past, and I forgave you…. But the future, that’s mine.”
Yet we can be set free from the bitterness of unforgiveness. At the end of the film, Tarrell tells his father, “Don’t stop praying for me.” Forgiveness is a difficult road to travel, but by the end of the film, he has taken the first important step.
