""Premonition,"" Sandra Bullock's new domestic psychodrama, proves to be a failed hybrid. Bullock plays a housewife with two children and a handsome husband—a seemingly perfect life. Her world turns upside down upon hearing that her husband died in a fatal car crash. Her world continues to spin, as each day she discovers her husband is actually alive.
The film is like ""Groundhog Day"" meets ""Memento."" The main problem is that it has potential to be a decent domestic drama or a psychodrama but not both. In fact, the attempted fusion of the two genres proves to be problematic and incompatible.
The film is visually pleasing but fails to compensate for its weak narrative. The highly stylized cinematography and editing are a good one-two punch, but ultimately falls short of the knockout due to the inconsistent and over-the-top narrative. This explains why the flashy editing, divorced from the screenplay, provides a pleasing aesthetic value, but cannot save the film from its writing.
Likewise, Sandra Bullock is physically stunning but lacks a high-quality performance.
The most inexcusable part of the film is that Bullock plots out the movie literally with a piece of construction paper and a crayon, as she writes out the fragmented narrative by organizing the sequence of mysterious events that occur over the course of a week. In doing so she destroys the only intriguing aspect of the film—the mystery behind the premonitions. Rather than creating a narrative in which the audience can piece together the puzzle for themselves, the film pounds you over the head as Bullock connects the dots for you.
In most psychodramas the key is to restrict the audience's understanding of the character's bizarre experience (think ""Mulholland Dr."" and ""The Sixth Sense""). This allows for jarring twists that the audience cannot foresee. ""Premonition"" makes the mistake of revealing its secrecy too early and gives the protagonist the power of control over her mysterious condition. This opens the door for poorly written awkward humor in an otherwise strange and dark film.
For example, when Bullock figures out that she can prevent her husband's death, she toys with the idea of not interfering with his imminent death because of a potential affair he considers with a co-worker. There is a line that Bullock whispers out of earshot of her husband to the effect of ""you really don't realize how much time you have left (wink, wink),"" which drew an uncomfortable half-hearted laugh from the audience. Does a cheeky one-liner like that belong anywhere near this type of film?
The cinematography is flashy but not distracting, with some close-ups during intimate moments between Julian McMahon and Bullock. Additionally, there is a highly stylized treatment of flashbacks that utilize various filmstocks and exposures. The creative team of Neil Travis (editor), Torsten Lippstock (cinematographer) and Mennan Yapo (director) has worked together on past German projects, but there is only so much the art direction can accomplish with Bill Kelly's lackluster script.
The question remains, is Bill Kelly the right candidate to write a psychodrama screenplay with only ""Blast from the Past"" and upcoming princess story ""Enchanted"" in his track record? Perhaps Kelly's next assignment will be more propitious; possibly a typical Bullock film like a chick flick-action-love story hybrid.
