The Forgotten (film)
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"The Forgotten" redirects here. For other uses, see Forgotten.
The Forgotten is a 2004 psychological thriller, directed by Joseph Ruben. The majority of the movie was filmed in New York City.
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[edit] Plot
Telly Paretta (played by Moore), is still grieving for her 9 year old son, Sam, who died in a plane crash 14 months ago. While trying to come to terms with her grief, she becomes estranged from her husband Jim (played by Edwards). She is then informed by her psychiatrist (played by Sinise) that her son never existed and was simply a figment of her imagination. She tries to find evidence that her son had existed, but it has all vanished.
Telly is convinced that she is losing her sanity, until she meets Ash Correll (played by West), father of one of the other plane crash victims. Telly finds clues which point to the lost children's existence. Running from the police who are chasing them, they accidentally run down a man, who later gets up and walks away without a scratch on him. Eventually, through the interrogation of an NSA agent who was tracking them, the two parents discover that aliens were behind the children's disappearance in order to carry out an experiment. Before he can tell them anything more, he is sucked into the sky by an unseen force, his last words being "They're listening".
In desperation, they go to the offices of the airline that ran the flight on which their children "died". It is in administration following bankruptcy, but Telly, thinking quickly, pretends to be the personal assistant of Mr. Shineer, the airline's manager, and scams the address he lives at off an accountant found in the head office. Going to that address, Telly remembers that an odd, friendly man was near Sam the last time she saw him, at the same time Ash finds a picture of him on the mantlepiece of the now-abandoned house.
A detective and Telly's psychiatrist are in pursuit, and the detective, Anne Pope, bumps into the odd man, who ignores her threats to shoot him if he doesn't stop walking. She makes good on them, but the wounds heal instantly, and he walks away with a sardonic look. Now believing Telly, Pope confronts her and confesses that she believes Telly, and says she will help her, but is sucked into the sky before she can make good on this promise, her last words being "We will find your son-".
Returning to Ash's apartment they are again confronted by the odd man. He taunts them, but Ash throws himself and the man out of a window, being sucked into the sky. Telly runs down to the street to find no trace of either. Her psychiatrist tries to persuade her to go to the police, but she ends up forcing him to take her to the airline's hangar instead. There they once again see the odd man, and the psychiatrist reveals that he knows of the experiment, but cannot convince the nameless man to stop it.
The movie has two endings; one for the theatrical release, and an alternate version included in the movie's DVD.
In the first, after a brief dialogue with Telly, the man creates an illusion of Sam which Telly chases through the hangar, and then confronts her again. He reveals that the purpose of the experiment is not to investigate the children, but rather the bond that exists between a parent and child, and that he believes it can be broken. He admits, however, that the experiment has so far produced no positive results with regards to Telly, and that it will fail soon if she doesn't forget, and he will be responsible for that failure. However, despite him revealing himself as an alien and almost succeeding by stealing the memory of Sam's birth, Telly can still remember her son, and he is whisked away by an unseen force, presumably to face the consequences of failure. Reality is restored to normal, and Telly is the only one who can remember the events that transpired.
The alternate version is very similar, except that Telly is faced with a facsimile of Sam's room. She tries to force her way in, but cannot reach Sam. The alien scientist tries to convince her to forget Sam, but fails. He then accepts that the experiment has failed, and explains that she will be the only one who remembers what transpired there. Reality is again restored to normal.
[edit] Cast
- Julianne Moore – Telly Paretta
- Christopher Kovaleski – Sam
- Jessica Hecht – Eliot
- Gary Sinise – Dr. Jack Munce
- Alfre Woodard – Det. Anne Pope
- Anthony Edwards – Jim Paretta
- Dominic West – Ash Correll
- Linus Roache – "A Friendly Man" (Mr. Shineer)
- Lee Tergesen – Al Petalis
[edit] Quotes
"There would be no suffering at all, if only you would forget him." - The alien scientist; Scott Nicholson
[edit] See also
Many have suggested that the main character was suffering from paranoia as evidenced by scenes with her therapist at the beginning of the movie, with the locations of some of the scenes in the movie shown to be very close to the main characters home, and with the "Hollywood ending" of the movie. This has not been directly verified by interviews with the cast and crew who have instead taken a "let the audience decide for themselves" view on whether the movie was about an alien experiment or one woman's delusions and fear. See also Schizophrenia.
