The Forgotten

I really like Julianne Moore. She was at her best in The Hours and Far From Heaven. She has terrific range – compare her role in The Hours to that in Boogie Nights. But here, she is let down by a weak plot. It starts out most intriguingly and sets up a fascinating mystery, but the denouement is so fantastical and far-fetched that it left me completely flat and unmoved. Screenwriters would do well to bear in mind Steven Covey’s principle of “Start with the end in mind”. It is one thing to set up a terrific mystery, quite another to end it in a surprising and satisfactory manner. See for example how M. Night Shayamalan gets it exactly right in The Sixth Sense and then gets it horribly wrong in The Village. The Forgotten is a pleasant way of passing a few hours, but holds little by way of suspense or substance.