Telly Parada (Julianne Moore), grieving over the death of her son, finds that everyone has forgotten he ever existed and all traces of him are gone. When she tries to get a man to remember that he had a daughter that also died, she is suddenly wanted by the NSA.
I have my review of The Forgotten sitting in the miscellaneous page because if I put it where it belongs, it would give away the big secret. It’s not really much of a secret considering what they stuck in the trailers, but I’m going to try and say less than the studio marketing department. That makes it hard to comment on this film as the big “mystery” takes up so much of it.
So, what can I say? The FX are effective and the suddenness of several events will make most people jump. Julianne Moore does as good a job as possible with the role she is given. I can say that the chases go on far too long, and are poorly constructed (the only way she could have gotten away is for her pursuers to be not only stupid and technologically ignorant, but physically weak). I can also say that the opening is flawed as I should have liked Telly, but instead, I sympathized with her husband. Perhaps I just can’t put myself into the shoes of a woman who’s lost her child. But even if you empathize with her, don’t expect to enjoy this film.
To discuss how The Forgotten goes horribly, horribly wrong, I’d need to violate my oath of silence (OK, so I didn’t actually take an oath of silence, but I like that phrase). So, in vaguest terms, I’ll say that the story doesn’t make sense, is nearly incoherent, does not explain most of what is happening, has huge plot holes, and is stolen from a much better movie from 1998. Plus, nothing would have happened if it were not for an inexplicably poor job of wallpapering.