What is up with Julianne Moore these days? The reigning goddess of indie cinema must either be in some dire financial straits or tired of all the emotional work that goes into playing meaningful roles in complex films, because she's certainly been taking a vacation lately. First the limp romantic comedy, Laws of Attraction, with Pierce Brosnan, and now The Forgotten, a nonsensical thriller with a clunker of a script and two or three exciting moments, all of which you can see in the commercial.
Moore doesn't even seem to be trying in the standard grieving mother role of Telly Paretta, who lost her 9-year-old son Sam in a plane crash 14 months ago. Telly can't get over her grief, spending every day in intense therapy sessions with Dr. Munce (Gary Sinise) and taxing the patience of her better-adjusted husband (Anthony Edwards). One day Telly wakes up to discover that all the mementos of Sam she'd been keeping—photos, videos, souvenirs—have disappeared, and no one, including her husband, can remember the child ever existed.
Racing to discover the truth, Telly contacts Ash (Dominic West), the father of another child who died in the crash, and the two set out to find answers as they're being pursued by the National Security Agency. The set-up is chilling and sure to appeal to the visceral fears of anyone with children, but the follow-through is muddled and inconsistent. Plot holes abound, to the point where you wonder if the filmmakers have given up. The special effects in the movie trailers—of people dramatically sucked into the sky—are indeed dramatic and striking, but occur only three times toward the end of the film, and serve as nothing more than brief distractions from the inanity of the plot.
Nothing in The Forgotten happens for any reason other than that it's in the script, from Alfre Woodard's absurdly helpful cop to cell phones that only exist when it's convenient to characters who discuss having no money and then rent cabins in the woods. It's reminiscent of nothing so much as another C-grade thriller with mid-level stars from earlier this year, Godsend. Both prey on familial love, both feature decent actors slumming for paychecks, and both looked much better in previews.