The Forgotten

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.

 

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Sleeping with the Enemy

Tags

1990's, Joseph Ruben, Julia Roberts, Kevin Anderson, Patrick Bergin, Sleeping with the Enemy, Thriller

Film Title

Sleeping with the Enemy

Director

Joseph Ruben

Starring

• Julia Roberts as Laura Burney/Sara Waters
• Patrick Bergin as Martin Burney
• Kevin Anderson as Ben

It may not be a perfect entry into the thriller genre, but Sleeping with the Enemy sure has its moments of chilling suspense. Featuring Julia Roberts in a dramatic departure from her usual romantic comedies and competent direction, it remains a tense movie throughout.

Laura Burney is the beautiful young wife of Martin, a successful investment counsellor. They live in a nice house by the beach on Cape Cod and appear happy as a couple. Behind this image is the disturbing truth. Martin is an abusive and possessive husband, who regularly beats Laura and toys with her psychologically. Laura tries to please him but his abuse and extreme OCD become too much for her. Desperate to escape her traumatized life with Martin, Laura formulates a plan. Martin takes Laura on a boating trip on a night that soon becomes stormy so that his wife can overcome her fear of water. As the storm wreaks havoc on the boat, Laura seizes her opportunity and jumps overboard, in turn faking her death. We soon learn that she had been taking secret swimming lessons to enable her to escape. Laura swims to shore and grabs a cache of belongings before leaving. Relocating to Iowa, Laura lives under the name Sara Waters and tries to live her life again without the torment of Martin. She even manages to capture the eye of a Ben, a handsome drama teacher who lives next door. But Laura is still looking over her shoulder in case Martin realises the truth and attempts to find her. This fear soon becomes true as Martin puts two and two together and realises that his wife has faked her death. Seething with rage, Martin sets off after her in chilling fashion, hoping to find his spouse and reclaim her for good.

Joseph Ruben creates some scenes of chilling menace, especially in the beginning when we see Martin’s controlling ways and how he expects Laura to abide by them or else suffer his beatings. Through his camera, the beach house becomes a prison for Laura with the abusive Martin the person intent on keeping her caged in it. These scenes of oppression are counteracted by Laura’s eventual freedom after her escape, captured in blazing sunlight and warm colours. Admittedly, the scenes after the initially tense half an hour don’t quite live up to the menace of the beginning. This is partly down to the relationship Laura forms with nice guy Ben. I know he is supposed to be the nice guy in all of this, but the film when it shows their blossoming relationship is too light for a film that deals with a tough subject matter. The later half of Sleeping with the Enemy does have it’s fair share of thriller clichés that become a little repetitive. Saying that, the evocative and suspenseful score provided keeps the tension up high and embodies the fear that Laura has that Martin will eventually find her again.

The relatively small cast is well assembled. Julia Roberts is emotionally convincing as the brutalised Laura, who discovers her buried inner strength and escapes from the torment of her husband. As a character, we feel sympathy and want her get away from the abuse, most of this is down to the finely judged performance of Julia Roberts, who really shows her mettle as well as an air of fragile vulnerability. Patrick Bergin is slimy and creepily effective as the controlling Martin, his tall, imposing figure and stern face really do send shivers down the spine as he realises that his wife is not dead. Bergin plays Martin as a sophisticated psychopath, seemingly charming on the outside but abusive and controlling behind closed doors. Kevin Anderson is saddled with the least memorable part as the charming Ben, although to be fair he does his best with the material he is given.

All in all, Sleeping with the Enemy has its share of uninspired moments and lapse into cornball melodrama, but the performances of Roberts and Bergin along with the taut direction ensure that the movie is at least memorable and at times unbearably tense to watch.