Movie Review: Premonition - Page 2

Courtney Taylor Burness (Fur) and Shyann McClure (House M.D.) are good as the daughters. Thank goodness they don't overact like other child actors, and they give the film its needed warmth and gravity. As Linda's concerned mother, Kate Nelligan (The Cider House Rules) gives a solid performance, with enough conflict to make us ache for her decisions. Nia Long (Big Mama's House) doesn't have much to do as Linda's best friend — her role is rather peripheral and probably not even necessary. Peter Stormare (Nacho Libre) has a small role as a creepy psychiatrist. For some reason, I suspect that his role was much larger in the original script (I've heard there was as different ending).

Speaking of the script, written by Bill Kelly (Blast from the Past), it's really confusing and complicated — at least in the beginning — when the time line is all jumbled and we can't really tell what is real. I got confused because I thought it was a time-traveling story, until I reminded myself that it's about "premonition," as the title indicates. Still, the non-linear storytelling (as far as the real time line is concerned) can be very challenging to understand, especially when things are changed around Linda. Did she cause the changes? Can she change the future? Like The Butterfly Effect, the cause-effect plot can be mind-numbing. There are too many inconsistencies.

Even if you figure out the time line and the story arc, there still seem to be too many plot holes. And even when I understand what is real and what is premonition, I still have trouble figuring out why the order? Why Monday first instead of Sunday, if she's going to live her real life in chronological order? It's baffling, and judging from the buzz on Internet bulletin boards, I know many people feel the same way. And I think that's a detriment to the screenwriter. True, Donnie Darko has a weird time line and is challenging to understand as well, and it went on to become a cult classic. But I do think that Kelly is trying too hard to be clever and the script becomes needlessly complicated. Unfortunately, the plotting is not as tight or meticulous to compensate for the complexity.

Article Author: Ray Wong

Ray Wong is the author the novel, The Pacific Between, which won a 2006 IPPY Book Award. He also writes movie reviews for Actors Ink and Talk Entertainment. Other credits include the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Writers Post Journal, the Deepening. …

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