The title ‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ is quite self-explanatory. As the film progresses, there is a small fragment to a larger picture, a picture that revolves around the theme of seeking and finding forgiveness. The first feature film for painter Titus Kephart presents a son who is looking for healing from trauma that he experienced as a child, but it does not suffice to only say that ‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ depicts the life of a suffering artist. Such a description simply brings about a great deal of emptiness to this particular crafted story. Every stroke of paint has its own emotion and they always retrieve the protagonist in yet another internal conflict that this time seeks to overpower someone’s traumatic experience.
While reviewing the film, it is uncommon practice to commend the opening credits of the film, but here they do tug at the heartstrings in the first place. When the audience is invited into the art studio of a well known artist, the walls of the same turn out to be his canvas, quite literally. Terrell’s (André Holland) art is the primary focus of this film. He lives and works in an apartment with Jermaine (Daniel Barrier), Aisha (Andar Day) who is a singer/ songwriter and their child. Within this context of an artist’s home, Jerel Bischoff’s music score appears to be straightforward like a paint brush’s precise motions. Painting a lawnmower has never been more than a mere dedication to the locality, however the times of its creation have something considerably darker behind them. By painting, Terrell is attempting to drown the demons inside him. However, one simple fact is overlooked; it’s never easy to run away from your own nightmares.
Visiting his family’s old house with his mother, Joyce (Anjanae Ellis-Taylor), Terrell recalls fond moments until his father, Laron (John Earl Jelks), pays a visit. Terrell does not have a good relationship with his father. As a drug addict, he made the lives of Terrell and Joyce a living hell for many years. But now he’s clean… or that’s what he claims. Despite everything which happened in the past, Laron still has his mother’s love, which Terrell finds confusing. Her intentions are clear: she wants the two of them to reconcile, making this unexpected meeting unavoidable. Laron would be nothing but ecstatic if Terrell were to forgive him, but is Terrell able to do that; that’s the question.
In the course of the film, viewers have problems understanding the conflict since it centers around whether the son and the father will ever come together once more. Throughout the family whom Kephart so delicately renders with all its nuances and the major message is that the issue here is not forgiveness. It is even simpler: we can say, “No, it is okay,” but such situations are difficult to forget. It could be a week, it could be a month, even a year’s time. For Terrell, it has indeed been years; no wonder he finds it so hard to believe that the one standing in front of him is not the same Laron he knew all those years back.
Using direct shots, the film manages to address all of Terrell’s pain, which can be likened to a marriage between his father and some form of unresolved relationship. Flashbacks offer the past perspective and help realize how reconciliation would be a daunting task for the artist. He may not be able to abandon the thesis of his father’s guilt, but he is able to stop any further abuse for the sake of his wife and son.
Performances hit their mark, and so it is, understanding that moving through the many difficult conversations is almost heart piercing. The sincerity of expression of the film resonates with the cast, bare exposure of Holland’s makes it definitive to go through his craft and in turn, imagine his pain vividly. It is an exquisite contemplation of fatherhood, family, restoration, and quest for redemption and leaves the audience contemplating on the various mechanisms that people indulge in to cope with their problems or try to wipe out that which bothers them. A single canvas will not suffice to solve all the issues as Aisha points out to Terrell.
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