‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ Review: André Holland and John Earl Jelks Powerfully Delve into the Complexities of Father-Son Trauma in Titus Kaphar’s Poignant Feature Debut | Sundance 2024

Tarrell (André Holland) is a loving father to his young son Jermaine (Daniel Berrier) and a loyal husband to his wife Aisha (Andra Day). When the painter gets approached about a new gallery showing, he breaks the news to Aisha but reminds her that it’s her turn since the talented singer-songwriter is ready to get back into the studio. As he prepares to help his mother, Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), make a big move out of her longtime home, Tarrell comes face-to-face with someone he didn’t expect – and hoped never – to see again, his father La’Ron (John Earl Jelks).

When La’Ron is first seen, his beard is shaggy and he pushes around a cart, an indicator that he is living on the streets, and an effort to stop a robbery at a liquor store results in him enduring a brutal beating. But when he goes to his brother’s home for a haircut, a shower, and some much-needed rest, he is awoken by his sister-in-law aggressively poking him directly in his broken ribs, unsympathetic to his condition since he owes them a large sum of money, among other offenses caused by his debilitating drug addiction. The impact he has left on the son who tells his wife that he expected her to first meet his father in a coffin is lasting enough that he frequently wakes up from vicious nightmares with a ferocity that scares both his wife and son.

In his feature directorial debut, Titus Kaphar, who was on the Oscar shortlist in 2022 for the documentary short Shut Up and Paint, tells a compelling and complicated tale of fathers and sons. While Tarrell is at first resistant to even looking at the man he has long since written off, he eventually opts to hear him out, bringing a camera with him to record “his confession.” When La’Ron opens up about his own father and the physical abuse he meted out only to then call him a good man doing the best he could, Tarrell lashes out, unwilling to accept excuses for his behavior or La’Ron’s suggestion that the way he raised Tarrell was exactly what he needed to know that there was a different way to do it with his own son.

Those moments that feature Holland and Jelks alone together rehashing the past crackle with an electricity that find both actors at the top of their games. Holland conveys a deep hurt that has resulted in Tarrell putting up many boundaries for himself and his family, and the anger that can be seen in his face when he sees and listens to his father try to rewrite the tone of their history is palpable. Jelks wears a different kind of weariness on his face, well aware that nothing he can do will change the past and all too willing to move forward when it’s clear La’Ron has inflicted lasting pain that, as Tarrell expresses, might be forgiven but can never be forgotten.

This film remains tightly focused on its core characters, even as greater themes pervade their interactions and serve as jumping-off points for further thought. La’Ron expresses his tough-love policy as a necessary evil to shape Tarrell into the strong Black man he has become since people who look like them must, he insists, behave a certain way to avoid trouble. He takes the concept of manliness to a dangerous level, barely stopping to console his son when he jumps off a truck straight onto a nail that pierces through his foot. In his mind, that experience molded Tarrell into someone who could get through anything, while the adult painter remembers it as a horrific event in which his father couldn’t even find any compassion for a child who was in incredible pain.

While the men are central to Kaphar’s film, the women are also superb. Day demonstrates that she should do more acting in her first film role following her Oscar-nominated turn in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, impressing in her few scenes that find Aisha trying to keep Tarrell on track, both in his work and his obsessive hatred of his father. “You’re the hardest-working man I know, except when it comes to relationships” is perhaps her most incisive line of dialogue that captures how well she knows her husband. Academy Award nominee Ellis-Taylor, who is coming off a powerhouse lead role in Ava DuVernay’s Origin, brings a similar passion but a more reserved acceptance of the things she has been through as the blue-haired Joyce, including something Tarrell cannot fathom: she still loves La’Ron, even after everything he has put her through over the years.

The incorporation of Tarrell’s art provides a crucial link between his past and present that is even more resounding than the film’s multiple flashbacks to his childhood. Kaphar is an extraordinary artist whose work is magnificent and so purposefully detailed, evoking the emotion those featured feel and paying special attention to the relevance of space with houses in the background and figures in front, much closer to the spectator. Exhibiting Forgiveness has a clever title with more than one meaning, and it earns that title, both on the surface level with its portrait of a broken but resilient family and its much deeper look at the lasting effects of role models, both good and bad.

Grade: B+

Exhibiting Forgiveness is playing in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.