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Psychological thriller ‘The Forgotten’ lapses into sci-fi mess
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by Marissa Mazza
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
The trailer for Joseph Ruben’s “The Forgotten” did its job. It got me to the movie and led me to expect a lot from the film. But all I was left with when the credits started rolling was a few extra kernels of popcorn.
The movie stars Julianne Moore as Telly Paretta, a mother still trying to cope with the loss of her eight-year-old son, who supposedly died in a plane crash 14 months earlier.
Letting go is anything but easy for Telly. She spends the majority of her time looking at pictures and movies of her son and trying to keep her memories of him alive. Living in her memories is difficult enough, but when her psychiatrist, played by Gary Sinise, and her husband, played by Anthony Edwards, try to convince her that she has created these memories and never really had a son things get a little more complicated.
With the aid of a father, played by Dominic West of “Mona Lisa Smile,” who shared the same experience, Telly sets out to unravel the mystery of their children’s disappearance.
The movie started off on the right foot — setting the scene for what could have potentially been a pretty decent psychological thriller. The plot had me hooked, and the characters were pretty believable. I even jumped out of my seat a few times.
But midway through, the movie shifted and took a more sci-fi route, creating unrealistic and highly unbelievable scenarios.
The duo of grieving parents became indestructible. They survive a pretty bad car accident unscathed and manage to outrun government officials and some sort of “higher being” more times than I care to remember.
The middle of the film supplies viewers with a few more thrills, via mediocre special effects, but by the end, most of the thrills are over and viewers are left a little confused. A lot of loose ends never get tied up and a lot of the key elements of the plot are left unexplained. There were no answers to the dozens of questions running through my head. What happened to the kids? Where did they go? I guess I’ll never know.
Moore however, did provide a little entertainment to my otherwise disappointing Friday night. Her screen presence is great and she provides audiences with a very strong female lead role. Her passion and dedication to uncovering the truth about her son make her character one that is easy to sympathize with.
West’s portrayal of alcoholic Ash Correll provides a few brief moments of comic relief, but you can only watch two people escape near death a certain number of times.
With a different ending the movie could have had more of an impact and it could have been just an overall better film. Some of the characters are decent, but in the end the plot just doesn’t really add up to anything except confusion. Even though it came in first in the box office over the weekend, raking in $22 million, “The Forgotten” can wait for rental.
