Review
THE FORGOTTEN
Starring Julianne Moore, Anthony Edwards and Dominic West
Directed by Joseph Ruben
Opens Friday, September 24
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The Forgotten is a thriller that’s so mind-bogglingly far-fetched it makes you long for the good old days when only the bad guys were presumed to be insane. Ever since Hollywood decided that mental illness was fair game for titillation, thrillers have gone not only into the minds of lead characters, but up their asses as well. Now, instead of wondering "Will she catch the killer before he kills again?" we wonder, "Is she just imagining the killer and, if so, was there any point in watching this?"
The answer is, no, if you’re hoping all the film’s secrets will be revealed by the end, but The Forgotten is so ridiculous in its portrayal of the lead character that there’s a perverse joy in watching to see where it might go next. Julianne Moore stars as Telly Paretta, a Brooklyn mom still obsessing over her nine-year-old son who died 14 months ago in a plane crash. She’s a little forgetful – where she parked the car, whether she was just drinking coffee – but that seems understandable given her all-consuming grief. The film wastes no time in taking its first leap into thrillerville when Telly spies a family photo and yells at her husband (ER’s Anthony Edwards) for removing their son’s image from it. Instead of dealing with this twist on its own terms – perhaps by showing the husband’s reaction, for a start – the film quickly moves onto the next leap of logic, expecting us to suspend our disbelief just because it’s a thriller. And the leaps keep getting loopier. Next Telly’s kindly shrink (Gary Sinise) is telling her that she never had a son – she made him up. Her husband nods in agreement. Her nice neighbour doesn’t remember the son, either. At this point, most of us would probably check ourselves into a hospital quite willingly, but Telly’s a movie character, so she has to go on the lam with an alcoholic hockey player (Dominic West) who suddenly remembers he had a daughter in that plane crash as well. They get into a car and/or foot chase with the feds every 10 minutes like clockwork, but inexplicably decide to take a nap whenever the going gets really tough. If you enjoy noticing these kinds of narrative goofs, you’ll really enjoy it when characters start getting literally sucked into space. (Why can’t that ever happen in a Jennifer Lopez movie?)
The presence of a formerly great actress like Moore in a role usually played by Ashley Judd doesn’t make this nonsense any more convincing. Moore puts so much heart into it that you wonder whether she’s forgotten that the movie she’s in is totally bonkers. |
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