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The review contains spoilers that might affect the potential cinematic experience.
Thus, consider yourself warned before you continue to read the full review.
Forgotten opens with a number of very good shots where the camera seems to be floating high up in the air watching down on the city of New York and the people as if they were ants.
These shots bring a nauseating experience if you suffer from fear of heights, as the camera ultimately lands in a playground where Telly Paretta (Julianne Moore) sits on a swing.
Telly appears to be deep into her thoughts as she moves from the playground to a child’s room in her home where she begins to fondle a
baseball glove as if she tries to remember something.
Consequently, the audience finds out that she has lost her son, Sam, about 14 months
earlier in a plane crash.
Shortly after the opening, the film gets into a similar theme to Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004), which focuses on the element of voluntary amnesia in cases of painful memories.
In Forgotten everyone else, except Telly, seems to suffer from amnesia, as she is the only one that remembers her son.
The people close to her believe that she suffers from severe delusions and is slightly psychotic, as she acts as if she has created a memory from having a still-borne child.
In panic, Telly flees her persecutors, and begins to investigate Sam’s plane crash.
Telly discovers that all the news in regards to her son’s accident is suddenly gone.
In search for some conformation of her son’s existence Telly bumps into another parent, Ash Correll (Dominic West), who she recalls also lost
a child in the same accident.
Ash does not seem to recognize her, but Telly remains persistent as he somehow finds out that he once had a daughter.
Together Telly and Ash embark on troublesome journey to uncover the truth in regards to their children, as an unknown enemy seems to pull the strings from a high
place--pun intended.
The film initially sets up with an interesting plot with amnesia and psychological suspense.
However, it quickly turns into a quagmire as the film turns into a bad episode of the TV series X-Files.
Many of the ideas are never completed and instead of completing a notion it jumps a new thought, which convolutes the cinematic experience.
On occasion, Forgotten shines with remarkable effects, good
cinematography, and great possibility. In addition, Julianne Moore offers, as usual, a solid performance.
But it does not save the film, as it never come close to cinematic greatness, as the audience will feel that it might best be forgotten.
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