It's a cold, rainy night, actually 2 a.m., and on the Viper’s DVD player is the thriller: “The Forgotten.”
Conversely, I had “forgotten” to watch this paranoid thriller from five years ago starring Julianne Moore as the mother who can't forget the death of her son in a plane crash.
She tells her therapist, played by Gary Sinise, how much time each day she looks at his pictures, reviews clippings of the news stories, gazes at the picture of herself, the boy (Christopher Kovaleski) and her husband, played by Anthony Edwards.
And of course there are the home videos of the boy romping in the playground.
Moore is Telly Paretta in the film and she just can't let go and stop grieving.
Then, in a chapter out of “The Lady Vanishes,” all traces the boy ever live disappear. The videotape is blank. No pictures exist of the child. The family photo has only her and her husband. Hubby and shrink inform her the boy never existed. Years before, she had a stillborn child and manufactured the boy in her mind, complete with memories, they tell her.
Everything seems to point to that fact. She goes to the library but finds no information on a plane crash. Her neighbor and friend doesn't remember she had a son. She meets an alcoholic former hockey player, played by Dominic West, who supposedly had a daughter on the plane, too. But he suddenly has no memory of a daughter.
So the Moore character must be crazy, right? Julianne crazy? Are you nuts?
Soon we are submerged in a deep, "Ex-Files" type of mystery, sans David Duchovny.
The West character, after repeating his daughter's name, suddenly remembers her. Moore and West's characters take off searching for answers, while being chased by mysterious national security personnel.
The tension builds as the pair follow clues, including checking out the bankrupt airlines that supposedly took the children to their deaths.
Who is the “they” who follow the pair through endless chases, especially if they are only crazy people who think they had children they never really had?
Alfre Woodard, always a plus in the movies, plays a police detective who slowly believes the pair may not be as whacko as everyone says.
There's some heart-thumping moments, startling special effects and a not totally satisfying ending. The DVD includes an alternate ending that isn’t so alternate.
THE FORGOTTEN
• Directed by Joseph Rubin, screenplay by Gerald DiPego
• Rated PG-13 for intense thematic material, some violence and brief language
• Runtime: 1 hour, 39 minutes
• 3 stars out of 4
WEEKENDER / Entertainment
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‘The Forgotten’ compelling until the end
VIDEO VIPER / Robert Lebzelter
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