The Unforgivable

19 April 2025

This Friday, as the sun went down and the bright day turned into a calm night, I found myself curled up in bed with my laptop on top of me. Two tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared at the screen while the last scene played. I often form my opinion about a movie based on how it ends—and my opinion of *The Unforgivable* is definitely a good one.

But if you haven’t had a chance to make your own opinion about the movie yet, I urge you to do so—or not. Up to you.

The movie brings up a number of sensitive topics. Many of these revolve around the life of a convict—specifically, a murderer (that’s our protagonist, Ruth). But this movie isn’t like the ones that talk about life in prison. Instead, it sheds light on life after prison—if the person even gets to have one. Ruth is one of the lucky ones. She served her time (20 years, to be exact, for anyone curious), and now she’s free. But what does this freedom look like? What does she want from it? And how do the people around her feel about her freedom?

Well, as you can guess, people were not thrilled. Who these people are in Ruth’s case—you’ll find that out by watching the movie. But what I wonder is: how would people in the real world react to meeting an ex-convict? A murderer? Or maybe more importantly—how should they react? Forget people—how would I react? How should I react?

At first, I thought, "Oh well, everyone deserves a second chance, the benefit of the doubt." I would be a better person and treat them like any other human being. But... how can I? I don’t think I can. Can you? Look someone in the eyes, someone you know has killed in another life, and ask them what they did for fun over the weekend? I don’t think I can. My thoughts would be consumed by that one fact, and I would have questions.

Like—why?
Why did you do it?
How can someone even do something like that? Just end another person’s life?

That’s how I feel about that ^

But anyways… coming back to Ruth. Ruth had a sister. She was only five years old when the incident happened. Ruth wanted to know what happened to her, after she went into the system. There are multiple people involved in this story: Ruth’s sister’s new family, the cop who died—his family, and a family who recently moved into the house where the incident took place 20 years ago. They all have their own concerns, and they’re all consumed by their own emotions.

Some of them lost their father to a person who’s now roaming around freely.
Some of them have a daughter who has nightmares from her childhood, because of the events that took place 20 years ago when she was just five years old.
And that same five-year-old—well, she now has a childhood filled with PTSD.

Anger, fear, trauma—these are complex emotions for sure, yet somehow they can be singled out.

But it makes me wonder: what emotion does Ruth have?
If you know how the movie ends, this question is even harder to answer—like it is for me.

Is she angry about the incident? I don’t think so. She seemed rather sure of her choices.
Is she fearful? Life in prison must not have been easy, and neither has life after. But I wouldn’t associate her with fear.
We can debate about the traumatic effects of the incident.

But the way I see it—this movie isn’t about trauma. Or fear. Or anger. Or even mistakes.
It’s about—love.

PS: I know that sounds kinda cringe. "It's about-love". I hear it too. Well it is cringe. Maybe? But that's okay. I guess I could have used the word "sacrifice" instead of love. But I don't like the sound of that and this is my blog, so we will stick with love. If you came this far down the essay - Thanks and have a good day, touch some grass, drink some water, try not to slouch all day in front of a screen. Ok bye!