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Premonition
I have a Premonition. I see cinemas full of enthralled women while their husbands and boyfriends nod off.
Premonition is emotionally strong but desperately lacks the cohesion to give it widespread appeal. Appealing as a diversion and better than the very similar Lake House, but without any substantially enduring qualities. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: (men) - (women) Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: . To enjoy this film you should be: female.
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The opening credits are encouraging. You can tell a lot about the director's approach from the first minute and Premonition
promises a stylish take on the traditional spooky fare. Not that it's a thriller or horror by any means - it's a drama
with a strange psychological twist - the twist being Sandra Bullock jumping forwards or backwards by several days whenever
she goes to sleep. So on day 1 her husband Julian McMahon dies and the next morning he's happily supping coffee at the
breakfast bar, much to Sandra's bemusement. Hmmm, OK. So before anything weird happens, Sandra's already a few
days ahead. And at no point during the day she discovers her husband's death does anything happen to alert her that she's
in the wrong day. You know days when you wake up and think it's Thursday when it's actually Wednesday? You find out your
mistake pretty soon, don't you? Hmmm.
OK, so we'll suspend the critical faculty and settle down with it. The atmosphere is very effective in its
spook-without-shock approach - which I thoroughly approve of, I'm sick of being made jump by loud noises - and the
performances and charisma of both Bullock and McMahon (from Nip/Tuck) are both compelling and appropriate. I would've liked
to see Sandra tear her hair out a bit more once it started happening - she just frowns a lot without trying to find evidence
to support what day it is, for example. You'd turn the TV on, check the paper, your computer clock, wouldn't you? Well, in
this world you would continue frowning and accept the temporal distortion without playing with it in the slightest. That
always happens in these movies, doesn't it? Scriptwriters are very unimaginative.
I keep banging on about the niggles and that's because they provided the overriding impression for me. You can't get
absorbed into the story if you keep questioning the characters' behaviour - and this is why I think the movie will work
better for women than men. Women have a far better ability to see through the surface detail to the emotional tapestry
beneath, and Premonition is surprisingly tender in this respect. Pretty much everybody will see the climax coming though,
it's almost as if it's designed to give the viewer premonitions - I was shouting at the screen (in my head!) at the things
that were about to happen towards the end because they were so obvious - and I'm sure everyone else was too. I'm also
curious to know why the US version is a full TWENTY MINUTES longer than the UK version ... maybe the missing portions would
have helped matters.
