I’ll preface this review by saying that after watching this film, I read several other reviews of it, and it seems that the film was widely panned (for it’s storyline, not for the acting, which was impressive throughout). Julianne Moore plays Telly Paretta (yes, you read that right, her name is Telly), a woman grieving for her son Sam, who died in a plane accident 14 months earlier. But her husband Jim (Anthony Edwards) and her psychiatrist Dr Munce (Gary Sinise) both tell her that Sam never existed and that she has created years worth of memories about a child she never had. Is Telly delusional – or is the she only person who isn’t? She meets Ash (Dominic West), who she says also lost a child in the same plane crash that Sam was in, and although he is initially sceptical, he ends up helping her – but the search for the truth will take them to places they never could have imagined.
I’ll be honest – I only watched this film because Dominic West was in it, but I’m glad I did. It starts out as a psychological drama, and then takes a sharp turn into sci-fi territory. Sci-fi is not a favourite genre of mine, but I liked this, because it wasn’t all about spaceships, UFOs and little green men. There was a sense of menace to the whole sci-fi element, precisely because of what you don’t see.
The acting was great – with a cast like the aforementioned Moore, West and Sinise, and support from Alfre Woodward, how could it be anything else? Telly’s character was well developed – is she imagining or remembering her son – and if she is remembering him, why can’t anybody else?
There were a couple of moments which genuinely made me jump in shock, and the storyline was pacy enough to keep my interest throughout. I’m at a loss to understand the slating it has had in other reviews, but I accept that the ending was somewhat incongruous, and left some plot holes. Nonetheless, this was an enjoyable thriller, and I would certainly watch it again at some point in the future.
Year of release: 2004
Director: Joseph Ruben
Producers: Bruce Cohen, Todd Garner, Dan Jinks, Steve Nicolaides, Joe Roth
Writer: Gerald Di Pego
Main cast: Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Alfre Woodward
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