Premonition

I wish I’d had a Premonition not to rent this film. Actually, it’s not that bad - kind of like eating rice cakes - no taste and not particularly filling either.

The movie opens with Sandra Bullock (who appears to have a slight case of shrinking nose syndrome a la Michael Jackson - watch that, Sandra!) acting out the role of suburban house-wife Linda. She schleps her two perfectly beautiful daughters to school in the requisite minivan, then goes home to her boring routine. Linda doesn’t quite have a Stepford daze going on, but what with the slightly ominous music playing in the background and the way she snaps her dustcloth, we know something very bad is going to happen.

A cop appears at her front door and the film starts its rapid, downward slide out of credibility. Without even taking a step inside, the policeman breaks the news. Her husband is dead in a car accident. He conveniently mumbles something about the location of the crash and that’s it. No need to go identify the body. No instructions of what to do next. No, he’s gone, leaving a stunned Linda at the door. However, he does leave her a business card - just in case she thinks of a question...

The rest of this day proceeds in a blur. Linda has tell her two children that their father is dead. Her mother appears out of nowhere, then goes to bed. Linda falls asleep on the couch, clutching a photo of dead hubby Jim.

She wakes up in her bed and after a brief creep around the house, finds hubby alive and well and eating his Cheerios. Jim looks up to see her incredulous gaze. “Are you okay?” he asks, which is pretty much his line throughout. He owns that line. From then on, Linda is sent on a roller coaster ride of unexplained time travel, waking up on alternate days before or after the death. If it’s Tuesday, your husband must be dead. Or not. It gets so confusing at some point, she sketches out a calendar of her week just so the audience can keep track along with her.

On the next day after, Linda’s older daughter is suddenly made up with a bunch of creepy Frankenstein-like stitches all over her face. We find out later why, and realize that according to the time line, she should’ve had these stitches in the first scenes of the day after... Not to mention that I would have sued the doctor who stitched the kid up like that.

Then there’s the creepy psychiatrist who makes a house call to have her committed, dragging her kicking and screaming out of the house, then leaving her straight-jacketed on a waiting room bench. He’s the same guy who later (or earlier, depending on your frame of reference) prescribes Lithium for our confused housewife, without ordering any sort of medical test. Maybe she has a brain tumour, ever think of that?

The scriptwriters don’t bother with a rational explanation for all the time-travelling. Instead, a rather cloying priest gets to deliver the news that it’s all Linda’s fault for having a lapse in faith. Apparently, if you lose faith in the good stuff, all sorts of evil can intrude and take over your sense of time and screw up your mind. She needs to fight for what she wants. “But what do I want?” Linda asks. For the movie to end perhaps.

The final message seems to be that one can’t change what’s meant to be, even if you try really hard. But hubby does get one last romp in the sack with his wife and triples his life insurance. What a nice guy! The future was changed, but not really. Go back to sleep, Sandra, maybe you’ll wake up in a better role.