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EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS

"Heartfelt Redemptive Story About a Son Struggling to Forgive His Father"

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What You Need To Know:

EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS is a heartfelt, poignant story. Tarrell is a successful black painter. Despite his childhood with an abusive, drug-addicted father, Tarrell is a loving husband and father. However, his childhood trauma haunts him. So, he pours his experiences into his art. This provides for his family in ways he never thought possible. Meanwhile, his mother is a strong Christian. She encourages Tarrell to pray and look to the Bible. Suddenly, his estranged father, claiming a newfound faith, shows up, desperate for reconciliation. Tarrell struggles to forgive his father. Despite his mother’s plea, his struggles begin to erupt.

EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS is a beautiful, artfully told story about struggles of past trauma, forgiveness, family, fatherhood, and faith. It has a strong Christian, biblical worldview but doesn’t shy away from depicting Tarell’s struggles to forgive his father. The abuse Tarrell suffered from his father is raw and authentic, but not graphic or over the top. The movie explores these themes in a compassionate way. However, EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS has plenty of strong foul language and references to substance abuse. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.

Content:

(CC, BB, H, Ab, LLL, VV, AA, DD, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Strong Christian, biblical, moral worldview stresses the importance of being a good father, the power of forgiveness, the movie also contains a lot of Christian elements such as Bibles and prayer and many conversations about Christian ideas such as Grace and God’s goodness (though not every character comes to affirm the truths of Scripture, they are discussed openly and honestly), but man resists his saintly mother’s Christian faith and the examples of his troubled father’s new Christian faith, but he relents somewhat toward the end;

Foul Language:
Strong foul language in a few scenes, including one robbery scene with over five “f” words (there are a total of 20 “f” words), several “s” words, several GD profanities, five OMG profanities, and one character urges another to not blaspheme God’s name, plus, due to the movie’s cultural context, there are several uses of the “n” word;

Violence:
A man robs a liquor store but is knocked unconscious by a baseball bat, man hurts store owner and kicks a customer and breaks his ribs, a boy steps on a nail, boy later takes off his socks and shoes to reveal that it pierced through his foot (some blood is shown), there are several scenes in the hospital, a woman dies from high blood pressure, and there is physical and verbal domestic abuse depicted in a few flashback scenes;

Sex:
No sex;

Nudity:
No nudity; Alcohol Use/Abuse: There is mention of alcohol abuse, but nothing is depicted, plus several characters have drinks at an art exhibition;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
Some cigarette smoking and man’s father is addicted to drugs, specifically crack cocaine, while most the movie he is in recovery, there are a few scenes of him purchasing the drugs and abusing his family while under the influence, and there are many conversations about his drug abuse; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:
Boy and his mother argue about Grace and the Bible, there’s a brief heated discussion and misinterpretation of the story of Abraham sacrificing his son out of obedience to God.

More Detail:

EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS is a new feature-length drama from a first-time director Titus Kaphar, an acclaimed painter and sculptor who’s directed two short documentaries and a TV episode.

The movie begins with Tarrell, a successful painter, waking up violently after PTSD from his childhood causes him to have a panic attack. His outlet is his family, which include his wife, Aisha, and their son, Jermaine, and his artwork, which he uses to express his thoughts about his traumatic past.

Despite his past, Tarrell has built a great life for his family, selling his artwork for a lot of money. However, Tarrell is torn, and struggles, with the idea of other people buying artwork that comes from the abuse he experienced at the hands of his drug-addicted father when Tarrell was a child.

The movie then introduces viewers to the current state of Tarrell’s father, La’Ron, a struggling drug addict. Despite La’Ron’s struggles with addiction and homelessness, his brother takes him in one night. Apparently, this isn’t the first time La’Ron has relapsed.

Tarrell and his family agree to help move out his mother, Joyce, who’s been struggling with her health. Unknown to Tarrell, his estranged father shows up at his mother’s house. Tarrell lashes out in anger.

Despite his mother’s pleas to have the two men reconcile, Tarrell isn’t ready. However, as Tarrell continues to talk to mother, think about his past, and engage with his father, he starts on the long difficult road of forgiveness.

Despite what its title suggests, EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS is a master class in subtle, beautifully paced storytelling that chooses to show rather than tell how Tarrell is struggling to forgive his father. This mirrors the art that Tarrell makes and is a refreshing form of storytelling that engages the viewer in Tarrell’s life in a very effective way.

The acting is superb, especially from André Holland, John Earle Jelks and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Tarrell, Tarrell’s father and Tarrell’s mother, respectively. The dynamic between these three characters is intriguing, and their interactions reveal more about each character’s outlook on forgiveness, fatherhood, marriage, family, and hardship. EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS doesn’t shy away from showing Tarrell’s struggle to forgive. Also, many scenes show the intense abuse he suffered at his father’s hands.

As a foil to Tarrell, his mother, Joyce, is a Bible-reading, praying woman who quickly forgives her husband and encourages Tarrell to do the same. Both Joyce and her son, who passionately disavows her mother’s faith, are represented in honest and fair ways by the director, which serves the story well.

In the end, EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS is a subtle yet strong and ultimately positive depiction of forgiveness. It also honestly shows the reality that forgiveness isn’t always easy.

As such, it has a strong Christian, biblical worldview that stresses importance of being a good father and the power of forgiveness. EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS also contains lots of Christian elements such as Bibles, prayer and many conversations about Christian ideas such as Grace and God’s goodness. [SPOILER ALERT] Though the son struggles to accept his mother’s Christian faith and his father’s newfound faith, he does start to relent by the movie’s end.

EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS is a beautiful, artfully told story about the struggle of past trauma, forgiveness, family, fatherhood, and perseverance. However, it does have slightly more than 25 strong obscenities and profanities, plus references to substance abuse. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.