Though the public may still know Sandra Bullock as a likable, relatable comedy queen, the 57-year-old actor has proven time and time again she knows her way around a drama. After all, she has earned an Oscar nomination for not one but two heartwrenching dramatic performances—Gravity and The Blind Side—the latter of which earned her the Oscar win. It’s unsurprising, then that Bullock has no problem once again playing against type in The Unforgivable, a new Netflix drama that began streaming today. But this time, in her role as a convict who pled guilty to killing a police officer in cold bold, Bullock goes grittier than ever before.
Directed by Nora Fingscheidt—with a screenplay by Peter Craig, Hillary Seitz and Courtenay Miles—The Unforgivable is a film adaptation of the 2009 British miniseries, Unforgiven. In the movie, we meet Bullock’s character, Ruth Slater, on the day she is released from prison after serving a 20-year sentence. She is, apparently, getting out early on good behavior, though you wouldn’t know it from her ever-present glare. Her face doesn’t move a muscle when her parole officer informs her she is no longer allowed to use drugs, drink alcohol, frequent bars, own a weapon, or associate with anyone else with a criminal record. When a fellow tenant at the run-down halfway house attempts to barge in on Ruth in the shower—because she’s over her allotted 10 minutes—Ruth doesn’t hesitate to shove her against the wall. Ruth is a tough bitch, and Bullock plays her like one.
As you watch Ruth attempt to rebuild her life from the ashes, you do root for her, of course. But you also fear her, and for the filmmakers, it was both a challenge and gift to relay an unapproachable character like Ruth through one of America’s most approachable actors. In an interview for The Unforgivable production notes, director Nora Fingscheidt called Bullock’s performance “an amazing contradiction, to have such a likable actress playing such a tough part and then combining that into something so grounded and believable.”
In that same interview, producer Graham King agreed, and added, “How fun would it be for the audience to discover Sandra Bullock playing a character who comes out of prison after 20 years for killing a cop and selling it, believing it?” In order to help sell her tough-girl image, King suggested Bullock play her character as reticent as possible. He said, “I remember saying to her, ‘The minute you open your mouth, you tend to take the tension out of a scene because your voice is so calming and soothing. You’ve built your career on that. And now, we need the other way around.'”
For Bullock’s part, she felt that Ruth’s character was very much a part of her own personality, just a side that she rarely got to show to the world. “There’s nothing attractive or sexy about my character,” Bullock said in an interview for The Unforgivable production notes. “I know people are going to say, ‘But this is not the Sandra Bullock that we know and love.’ But, it is. There’s nothing about me that is false in this. I’m just giving myself permission to show it and I’m showing it on behalf of people that I love and adore, that are not getting the movies made about them.”
Reviews so far for The Unforgivable haven’t been favorable—the movie currently sits at 35 percent on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes—but most critics agree that Bullock delivers a convincing performance. And if Sandra Bullock can play a felon she really can do anything. Cast Bullock as MacBeth next!
Watch The Unforgivable on Netflix
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