Well, The Forgotten turned out to be a rather forgettable experience. I had hoped that this was going to be an original supernatural thriller, but that turned out to be misguided. The trailers looked promising, but they tend to make even bad films look exciting. The trailer seemed to show a straight forward thriller but seemed to have something else in it that was being downplayed. Some sort of alien involvement or some such thing, judging by the house getting ripped up.
I don't really want to go into too many of the plot points, out of respect for those who still wish to see it, but I will say that this entire exercise of a movie is completely implausible. I am good at being able to suspend disbelief, but some of the choices made in this film are completely irrational and can't be reconciled with the situation that they find themselves in. I will, however give a few thoughts about the film in general, if I didn't this review would be a waste of all of our time.
The concept of the film was good and could have been grounds for a great film, if it had been in better creative hands. The idea of a persons life being completely erased from existence, frightening to say the least. But here it is treated in such a heavy handed manner and sped along at a speed that makes it hard to completely grasp what is going on that it's effect is lost on this viewer. The initial setup is just too fast, we don't get a good enough feel for the characters before they are thrown into turmoil. Because of this we don't get a true look at the characters, and before we know it things are disappearing and memories are vanishing. It plays out like a bad episode of the X-Files.
Julianne Moore stars as Telly, a woman whose son is apparently being erased. Throughout the first act all memories, physical and mental, are disappearing. Somehow Telly remembers her phantom son, although it could be that she is just creating the memory of him to fill a void in her life, as suggested by her psychiatrist. Before we know it, she has met with another potential victim of memory loss and together they are off and running to find their possibly missing children. The second act is a chase, FBI, police, some other organization, all after Telly and her new friend Ash/ The third act is where everything falls into place, and also where logic goes out the window.
Moore is the best thing about this movie. Her performance is strong, you can truly feel the desperation in her search, even if you can't reconcile her desperation and her actions which are often highly illogical. This is the result of a poor script, which hinders the believability of the experience. Dominic West, who plays Ash, had an even harder time with the script, I didn't buy any of his performance, unconvincing to say the least. The other performances were OK, nothing that really stood out.
The movie was directed by Joseph Ruben, and while he had some nice shots, it seemed like amateur work. I can't quite put my finger on it, but It just didn't compel me, or draw me into the film. I've seen much much worse, this was just too pedestrian. The story was written by Gerald Di Pego, great concept, I really liked this idea of lost/erased memories, group dementia, the emotional bonds built within a family, but the way this plays out was poor. It glosses over the interesting portions in exchange for the chase.
Bottomline. I can't recommend this movie, there were too many missed story opportunities. Something I have noticed in a number of films this year, are poorly written and/or directed yet feature a strong lead performance. It's a shame that the rest of the film couldn't be as strong. I'd recommend waiting for a rental on this one.
Not Recommended.
Side note: this one one of the most problematic screenings that I have ever attended. The film was poorly misframed and boom mics were visible for long stretches through the film. Not to mention the faces that were cut off the bottom of the screen and the additional headroom in the top of the frame, or the black bars from in-camera blocking. There will be more to this story when I write about the theatrical experience.
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