Premonition (Widescreen)

 

 

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Sandra Bullock has the keen sensitivity to pick up some roles that she thinks she can create a niche and leave a mark of her acting skills. That is what interests me to see her movies. In "Premonition" - a time-tripping attempt to do for marital malaise what "Groundhog Day" did for commitment-phobia - a bored housewife named Linda (Sandra Bullock) wakes up one day, like any other day, and goes about her daily routine. She makes breakfast, takes the kids to school, jogs, does laundry - the usual. The day then takes a tragic turn when Linda learns, from an all too cryptic policeman, that her husband (Julian McMahon from "Nip/Tuck") has been killed in a car accident. Understandably, Linda takes the rest of the day to grieve and console her two daughters before passing out on the couch. The next day she wakes up in her bed...next to her husband - who is, it turns out, quite alive. Was it all a dream? Eventually (and it takes her a while to figure it out) it becomes clear that Linda is living the days of one week in random order. And, at some point, her husband is going to die. It's an intriguing concept for a film with something to say, or a character with the smarts to use this phenomenon to her advantage. "Premonition" has neither.

In the film's early moments, director Mennan Yapo - who made 2004's appropriately atmospheric "Soundless" - does an admirable job of keeping the audience off balance - at times quite literally; his frequent swaying handheld shots produce a vertiginous effect. But as the film progresses and the audience struggles to keep track of the days, even fancy camera moves don't help. I could see what relative-newcomer Bill Kelly was trying to do with his script: he meant to say something about treasuring each day because the end could come at anytime. But the effect of jumping randomly around the days of one week as if "they were thrown up in the air like a deck of cards" is too arbitrary to produce any real intrigue and repeated trips to find her husband in the shower brought to mind a certain infamous "Dallas" season finale (I half expected Patrick Duffy to be standing there). It's clear the film is struggling to keep the suspense up when it throws in the peculiar casting of Peter Stormare as Dr. Roth, filmdom's most ominous psychiatrist.

It's hard to dislike Sandra Bullock. Whether she's playing the lovelorn The Lake House (Widescreen Edition) or the love-starved 28 Days (Special Edition)the actress has an innate charm that can make some of the drippiest material palatable. Since Speed (Widescreen Edition)Ms. Bullock has tried her hand at thrillers with largely disappointing results The Net (Special Edition)"Murder by Numbers (Widescreen Edition). The obvious reason would appear to be the questionable material involved, but that's not entirely the case Miss Congeniality (Deluxe Edition) wasn't brilliant writing, but it played to Ms. Bullock's charisma). In "Premonition", I think the actress smiles a total of once in 100 minutes on screen. Granted, it's radiant when she does, but that's not enough to save the film.

Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) has become unstuck in time. Actually the time frame is one week in which the days have been shuffled. She wakes up and it is Thursday, but the next day it is the previous Monday, and the day after that it is the following Saturday. This is all confusing and quite maddening to Linda, especially since Thursday is the day the sheriff rings the doorbell and tells her that her husband had been killed in a car accident the day before. That means when she wakes up on Monday Jim (Julian McMahon) is still alive, but on Saturday they are burying him. Family and friends are starting to think that Linda is having mental problems, and she is having problems wrapping her mind around what is going on herself. But if she knows what is going to happen, then she can do something about it, right?

This is one of Bullock's better performances as she takes advantage of the opportunity to do something different, but despite her best efforts this film lives and dies by the script by Bill Kelly ("Blast from the Past"). The basic idea is pretty intriguing: Linda is living the days of this week out of sequence, which gives her the opportunity to do something about Jim's death. The script even takes a nice twist when Linda starts thinking that maybe she should not do anything and just let it happen. However, Kelly's script suffers from two fatal flaws, the first having to deal with Linda's ability to change things and the second with the way this twisted time travel tale plays out.

If you have not seen "Premonition" then you should look away at this point because THERE BE SPOILERS HERE and I am going to rant and rave about these reasons why I deducted two stars off of this 2007 film's rating. If you have not seen the film and are interested in the premise and/or actress, then check it out sometime and then come back and read the rest of this review:

My rant is because Linda does not stop Bridgette from going through the plate glass door. That happens on Tuesday and on Sunday Linda could put the damn flower stickers and save the door. Bridgette did not have scars on Thursday, which was "before" Tuesday, but then she did not have them on Wednesday, which was "after" Tuesday. Clearly Linda can do something about the past (which is where the future is usually found in this movie), and even if she does not want to do anything about Jim, she should want to spare Bridgette from getting her face all cut up. I go back to the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" when Nancy wakes up and has yanked Freddy's hat back with her from her nightmare. Nancy knows that this is important and figures out how she can make it work for her. Linda is given a similar cosmic clue and she does absolutely nothing with it. I thought preventing her daughter's accident would be the catalyst on Wednesday for Linda deciding to prevent the accident, but

My rave is that we get to the end of this film and it turns out that for all its complexity what with shuffling the days of the week and having Linda wrestle with whether or not she should prevent the accident, "Premonition" turns out to be such a variation on the old time traveling story that I have always related with the "Titanic." You go back in time to stop the "Titanic" from hitting an iceberg, and while you are yelling, "Look out for the iceberg!" you distract the crew so they do not see the iceberg. So Linda becomes the cause of Jim's death by trying to stop it. Dramatic irony aside, the theoretical position here is that you cannot change the past because your attempt to change the past is already part of the past, so there. The theological posturing at the end is too little too late, because I find it hard to believe that Linda would be able to live with what she has done. Adding insult to injury is the alternate ending, which to me says they did not even have the courage of their conviction with the inadequate resolution of their intriguing premise. At least the gag reel is about actually gags played on the set and not just flubbed lines, which was a nice touch, but not enough to redeem the flaws in this film.

I wish I could give this movie 6 or more stars!It is so realistic and thrilling. And two of the most beautiful and best actors in it! This movie really reminds us of the inevitability of our fate. What is meant to happen is going to happen now matter what we do or how we try to avoid it/change it. I experienced something like this myself, and I'm sure other people have experienced it too. And this is exactly what this movie is about. I personally loved it.

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5.0 out of 5 stars very satisfied
it was a very good experience dealing with amazon, I am so very pleased !
thanks and keep it this way !

Monica

Published on Jun 24 2009 by Monica Widjaja

5.0 out of 5 stars Every day we are alive can be a miracle
Shades of Groundhog Day or some more sophisticated what if time travel.

I was surprised at how tight the story is and every minute, every word, and every movement... Read more

Published on Jun 7 2008 by bernie

1.0 out of 5 stars This is not a good movie, don't waste your money.
Personally, I am a fan of Sandra Bullock, I like her movie, yet this one is really really disappointed me. The reason why? You will find out so easy. Read more

Published on April 11 2008 by J. Au

4.0 out of 5 stars Likeable if not a little weird
This is a movie you may dislike intensely or really like the quirkiness of it.
If you aren't good at thinking outside the box into the realms of illogical thought, then... Read more

Published on Feb 22 2008 by Katy Andrews

1.0 out of 5 stars morbid,overly depressing, pointless and incoherent
talk about a painful movie to watch.this is it.i found it morbid,overly
depressing and pointless,as i mentioned in the summary. Read more

Published on Sep 22 2007 by falcon

2.0 out of 5 stars enjoyable but that is it
Housewife Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) is married to Jim (Julian McMahon), has 2 daughters (Shyann McClure and Courtney Taylor Burness), and her best friend Annie (Nia Long)... Read more

Published on Aug 5 2007 by Francesca Jourdan

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