The Forgotten

Buy This Item The Forgotten by Sony Pictures  Available from Amazon  $14.95  on 11-28-2008     With a plot that might've been lifted from <I>The X-Files</I>, nothing is quite what it seems in <I>The Forgotten</I>, a psychological conspiracy thriller with Julianne Moore doing fine work as a grieving mother whose nine-year-old son was killed in a plane crash. At least, that's what she's been led to believe, but when even her husband (Anthony Edwards) tries to convince her that she's delusional and never had a child, things start to get very spooky indeed. Dominic West (from HBO's superb series <I>The Wire</I>) plays a similarly traumatized father, and when they witness some <I>very</I> strange events--and a mysterious man (Linus Roache) who might be indestructible--this glorified B-movie potboiler directed by Joseph Ruben (best known for <I>Dreamscape</I> and <I>The Stepfather</I>) turns into a preposterous but entertaining trip into <I>The Twilight Zone</I> territory. Featuring Alfre Woodard as an intuitive New York detective and Gary Sinise as a seemingly sympathetic psychiatrist, <I>The Forgotten</I> offers adequate shocks and an intriguing, otherworldly study of tenacious parental instinct. It deserved its mixed reviews, but it's a fun spook-fest for rainy-day viewing. <I>--Jeff Shannon</I> Reader Reviews Warning: spoilers contained. Julianne Moore leads the cast as a grieving mother on a tour de force that draws her into her personal hell, driven by heart alone as everyone, and everything, around her discounts her inner conviction that something else has happened to her missing son. Her husband is of no help, even trying to convince her that they never had a son. But just as she seems to be headed straight for a straight jacket, pieces of the wallpaper start to peel away and eventually the top is taken off of the day-to-day conventional notion of reality, plunging it into something that is totally unknown territory. Not only is the movie an almost continuous metaphor of messages, it provides a revelatory experience for the viewer as the plot unfolds and while some characters are unknowing, others, in the roles of authority to whom we have been taught to trust, are found out to be playing a pantomime while knowing of a deeper line of subterfuge. Why are they doing this when it appears that they are selling us out? What force would have the ability to alter our perceived reality so thoroughly and completely? A moody movie of foreboding overtones with many shades of blue that, along with Ms. Moore's performance, makes for sumptuous viewing, a preview and a catalyst for a meta-level of consciousness, a wave of awakening that is coming to engulf us all in a time of disclosure that is unparalleled in human history. If you felt uncomfortable or if it went over your head, try watching it again. You are close to something.

The Forgotten Available from Amazon Price: $14.95 Updated on 11-28-2008.

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