 |
| Director
: |
Joseph Ruben |
| Starring
: |
Julianne Moore, Dominic West |
|
| The plot of
The Forgotten |
A
single mother (Moore) loses her 8-year-old son
in an airplane crash, and seeks out psychiatric
help in order to cope with her grief. Instead
of help, she is told that her son never existed
and was a product of years of self-created false
memories. When she meets a father (West) who has
had a similar experience, the pair team up to
try to find some answers to their bizarre predicament. |
| The Forgotten
Movie Review |
Is
this the year of the B-movie thriller? Coming on the
heels of the highly enjoyable Cellular is the equally
engaging The Forgotten, a freaky little thriller in
the Stephen King vein that's so good and so unsettling
you can bet Mr. King is slapping his head that he hasn't
written anything this good in ten years or so. Mixing
close-to-home horror with conspiracy theory paranoia,
it's a somber, stylish movie that hooks you from the
very beginning and doesn't let go, even when its plot
machinations start getting just a bit outlandish, to
put it politely. And by playing its thrills straight,
The Forgotten barrels forward with the kind of momentum
that makes for the best page-turning pulp novels (apologies,
Mr. King), the ones that get you so involved to the
point where you have to keep on going until you find
out exactly what happens – even as you're dreading
what may be around the next corner.
Though a fair amount
of the credit for The Forgotten should go to screenwriter
Gerald Di Pego (who has a number of clunkers to his
name, including Instinct and Angel Eyes), the lion's
share of praise must be heaped upon director Joseph
Ruben. The helmer of minor-classic 80s thrillers Dreamscape
(a movie Pauline Kael loved) and The Stepfather (a chilling
study of suburban horror), Ruben is also the man who
made a silk purse out of the sow's ear that was Sleeping
With the Enemy, which even without a on-the-cusp-of-stardom
Julia Roberts wrung true terror out of the sight of
neatly stacked cans in a cupboard and towels hanging
symmetrically on a bar. Though he's done… okay
work during the past decade, Ruben makes a triumphant
return to form with The Forgotten, structuring scenes
with such precision that when the payoff scare comes,
you're jolted out of your seat, jaw dropped at even
the most absurd sights. He plays out the story bit by
bit, leading you on with just enough info to keep you
guessing but never giving you the whole story, and rather
than feeling duped, you're gleefully sucked in.
Ruben also scored a
major coup by casting one of the most empathetic of
contemporary actresses as his lead. As Telly Paretta,
a mother grieving the recent loss of her nine year-old
son, Julianne Moore is luminescent even in her sadness.
Moore's gaunt, wan features and brusque demeanor don't
belie the number of emotions beneath her surface though,
and her performance here is just as nuanced as her other
recent turn as a beleaguered mother in The Hours. Still
obsessed with the tow-headed Sam after 14 months, Telly
only seems to wander out of her gorgeous Brooklyn townhouse
for psychiatric sessions with a sympathetic shrink (Gary
Sinise), and spends the rest of her time gazing longingly
at photographs and videos of her child, much to the
frustration of her understanding but frazzled husband
(Anthony Edwards). Suddenly, however, Sam goes missing
from the framed photos, the scrapbooks are filled with
blank pages, and the videos are screens of fuzzy static.
Telly's soon told by both her husband and psychiatrist
that the son she thought perished in a plane crash over
a year ago never existed – she's instead manufactured
memories and a history that were never real to deal
with a past miscarriage.
This is about all you
need to know of the plot for The Forgotten to make it
work properly, aside from the fact that Telly soon teams
up with the lunky, hunky Ash (Dominic West, playing
just this side of macho surliness), an alcoholic ex-hockey
player whose daughter was supposedly on the same plane
as Sam. A scene where she goes to confront Ash, who
doesn't remember a daughter, feels like the Mia Farrow-Charles
Grodin scene of Rosemary's Baby, and the first half
of the movie is almost an homage to the paranoid claustrophobia
of Roman Polanski's thriller, with its disappearing
children and cabal of seeming do-gooders roaming the
streets of New York. Unlike Rosemary, though, Telly
doesn't have a clue as to why her son's disappeared
– the devil didn't do it, and none of the concerned
people who want to help her seem evil enough to be pulling
the wool over her eyes. Stalked all over New York by
people trying to bring them home, Ash and Telly finally
catch one of their hunters, tie him to a chair, and
begin asking questions.
It's this scene, set
in a remote hotel cabin in upstate New York, where their
helpless victim provides Telly and Ash with the one
clue that confirms their most feared suspicions. With
that, The Forgotten takes a phenomenally surprising
left turn that will, if you've ever been a friend to
at least one Stephen King novel, hook you until the
end of the movie -- and provide you with one of the
best scares in movies in years. Ruben slowly prepares
you for the shocks that are dispensed economically through
the movie – a scene between Telly and Ash in a
car that starts out looking like tedious exposition
is suddenly jolted into adrenaline-pumping action –
but unless you're the most jaded moviegoer, the rest
of The Forgotten plays out sublimely in the manner of
the best, most improbable B-thrillers. There are a good
number of plot holes, even up to the ending where a
crucial and somewhat obvious piece of information is
overlooked, but Ruben's filmmaking glides you over those
gaps with ease – that is, if you're willing to
take the ride. If you are, you'll be rewarded by the
most stylish, surprisingly effective thriller since
The Ring.
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