Tags
2000's, Alfre Woodard, Anthony Edwards, Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Joseph Ruben, Julianne Moore, Linus Roache, Psychological Thriller, Science Fiction, The Forgotten
Film Title
The Forgotten
Director
Joseph Ruben
Starring
- Julianne Moore as Telly Paretta
- Dominic West as Ash Correll
- Gary Sinise as Dr. Jack Munce
- Alfre Woodard as Detective Anne Pope
- Linus Roache as Mr. Shineer
- Anthony Edwards as Jim Paretta
A potentially intriguing premise descends into confusion and disjointed genre melding in The Forgotten, which despite the talent included comes out as a weak and unmemorable movie. Only for a strong turn from Julianne Moore and a suitably eerie score, The Forgotten remains partly watchable.
Telly Paretta is trying to survive the grief of losing her young son Sam in a plane crash fourteen months earlier. No matter how hard she tries, she is haunted by the pain of loss and sadness at losing her beloved son. Her husband Jim thinks it is time that she moves on, but Telly thinks otherwise and continues to cling to the memories of her little boy who was tragically taken from her all those months ago. Then one day Telly wakes up and the strangest thing has happened. The photographs of her and her son are gone. All the tapes of him are blank. And everyone who Telly comes into contact with, even her husband, tells her that they have never heard of her son and that she is delusional. Her psychiatrist Dr Munce explains that Telly has fabricated these memories of ever having a son. Everything that she has experienced up to this point has been a dream or fantasy, according to everyone surrounding her. Bewildered and shocked, Telly knows that she had a son and wants to prove that she is not slipping into madness, despite everyone around her questioning that her boy ever existed. Telly soon finds something of an ally in Ash Correll, who she says had a daughter who died in the same crash. At first, the miserable alcoholic dismisses her claims and won’t listen, but he comes to see that she is right about the whole thing. Now with Telly and Ash searching for the truth, they find mysterious government agents on their tail. And that’s not all, a strange and unexplained force seems to be after them as well. What will be unearthed in Telly’s quest for answers?
Director Joseph Ruben knows how to direct a thriller, but none of that skill is evident here as he tries to straddle the stands of psychological thriller and sci-fi into one. The whole tone of the film suffers and is hellishly disjointed, coming off as a directionless thriller and an X Files reject . This is a shame because the opening sets up what could have been an interesting story, that is wasted and falls short in almost every category there is. The whole basis of a mother searching for her son could have provided a lot of deep emotion here, yet The Forgotten squanders most of the impact. The Forgotten aims to be unpredictable and unexpected, but the script is weak and as the story plods on, it becomes to ludicrous to take seriously. The visuals of moody blue and grey are actually quite well done, but can’t make up for the shortcomings of the film. An ominous and melancholy score, with an underlying electronic edge, adds some much-needed suspense and eeriness to the proceedings.
The saving grace of The Forgotten is the ever-reliable and excellent Julianne Moore. Rising above the multitude of flaws in the story, she invests Telly with emotional clarity and tenacity in her attempts to prove she is right and hopefully discover the truth. Moore is the reason to watch this film as she shines in the part and brings emotive depth and conviction to a hollow film. Unfortunately, none of the other parts are interesting or particularly well-written. Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Alfre Woodard, Linus Roache and Anthony Edwards all have great talent, but the material they are given to work with is abysmal so none of them can make any impact in such sketchy roles.
So except for some striking visuals, melancholy score and Julianne Moore’s performance, The Forgotten should be exactly what the title says.
Khalid said:
Nice Review.
I guess I can forget watching this movie.
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vinnieh said:
Haha, I would advise forgetting about this movie.
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Khalid said:
Also, how dare they waste Dominic West. I love that guy
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vinnieh said:
You tell em Khalid.
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badblokebob said:
Have to say, I’d forgotten this even existed.
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vinnieh said:
That’s properly for the best.
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beetleypete said:
I have to -sort of- disagree V. I enjoyed this a lot. I thought the visuals and flat colours were great, and I even liked the ‘moody’ acting employed by almost the whole cast. Plus the effect when they are sucked into the sky is just fabulous!
But it’s not a ‘great’ film, I agree on that. It is shown on Freeview channels on a regular basis; so free of charge, on a dull TV night, i’ts a lot better than another dose of Ant and Dec…
Cheers mate, Pete.
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vinnieh said:
Thanks for commenting Pete. I like it when people have a different opinion to mine, makes it more interesting.
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beetleypete said:
In my case mate, it is also probably to do with age. Perhaps we ancients are more easily pleased! Cheers V.
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vinnieh said:
You are not ancient Pete, age is just a number.
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David said:
Couldn’t agree more. Terrible misstep for Moore. Utterly boring film.
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vinnieh said:
You got that right man.
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By Hook Or By Book ~ Book Reviews, News, & Other Stuff said:
Completely agree Vinnie. I thought the premise was interesting, but then…
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vinnieh said:
Yeah, everything else was squandered unfortunately.
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By Hook Or By Book ~ Book Reviews, News, & Other Stuff said:
Ah well. Sometimes great actors make terrible movies.😕
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vinnieh said:
And Julianne Moore is one amazing actress.
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By Hook Or By Book ~ Book Reviews, News, & Other Stuff said:
She’s one of my favorites!
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vinnieh said:
One of mine too.
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The Telltale Mind said:
Yeah, this was definitely not my fav movie when it came out. Okay, but that’s about it.
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vinnieh said:
Those are exactly my thoughts.
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theipc said:
The Forgotten should just stay forgotten…. sucky movie…
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vinnieh said:
I couldn’t have said it better myself Eric.
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marvelousbooks said:
I watched this movie a long time ago, and I will definitely not watch it again. This movie sucks.
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vinnieh said:
You pretty much summarised my thoughts on it.
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abbiosbiston said:
I vaguely remember seeing this but that’s about it.
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vinnieh said:
That’s probably for the best Abbi.
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Mel @ The Creative Fox Den said:
I didn’t mind this one actually. There were some good moments in it. It wasn’t amazing by any means, but I did enjoy watching it. I see your points though. And Julianne Moore did give a good performance, as always
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vinnieh said:
Thanks Mel. Julianne Moore is just always so good in everything she does.
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Mel @ The Creative Fox Den said:
She is. I just watched Still Alice. INCREDIBLE
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vinnieh said:
I gotta see that film, heard so many amazing things about it.
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Mel @ The Creative Fox Den said:
If you like Julianne Moore (and I know you do) you HAVE to watch it.
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vinnieh said:
Message received loud and clear.
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teny said:
Nice take 🙂 There are only a few movies justifying their titles, right? Even if it is bad for the movies itself 😀 I won’t be watching this.
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vinnieh said:
This is definitely a case of the title serving as a warning about the movie itself.
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