| Time And Again |
Premonitiondirected by Mennan Yap  Sandra Bullock as Linda is startled to see her husband (Julian McMahon) at the breakfast table after foreseeing his death   Bullock's performance in this time-bending thriller doesn't quite save the film from a sloppy script  The chair says it all: director Mennan Yap  Kate Nelligan and Bullock in "Premonition" Housewife Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) seems to have it all—two cute little girls, a handsome husband Jim and a large house on a sunny patch of land in Anywhere, U.S.A—until one bright day Jim is killed in a car accident. After receiving this devastating news, Linda awakes the next morning to find him drinking coffee in the kitchen, feeding the kids breakfast and, well, looking very much alive. Did she dream it all up? Did she see into the future? Part detective story and part thriller, Premonition is the time-bending story of Linda’s attempts to stitch together reality from a patchwork of dreams, precognitive flashes and real-time events in order to prevent her husband’s death. In the process, she discovers his imminent affair with a co-worker and her own repressed dissatisfaction with her own hum-drum homemaker life. Turkish-born German director Mennan Yap takes this sloppy, erratic screenplay by Bill Kelly and manages to create some truly tense moments as Linda skids across fluctuating time bands in a desperate struggle to rewrite the future and save her husband’s life. An unlikely mix of "Appointment in Samarra" and "The Sixth Sense," the film creates moments of suspense and anticipation, but winds up failing to tie off the loose ends and create a digestible, credible story. Bullock manages the transition from routine-driven, small-town housewife to panic-stricken time traveler with some skill, and Aussie actor Julian McMahon (of Nip/Tuck fame) makes slightly human the messily-written role of devoted father/prospective adulterer Jim. The devil, with this film, is in the details. Gaps in plot and lapses in an internal logic create an unsatisfying journey that culminates in a quasi-pious and illogical climax. There are plusses to this creative yet disorganized production. Torsten Lippstock’s cinematography which juxtaposes slow, serene scenes of bucolic bliss with erratic, hand-held shots in flashbacks is compelling and tension inducing; production designer Dennis Washington delivers a believably worn and cozy Hanson household into which the viewer feels he/she might be eavesdropping from the attic. Bullock is mercifully devoid of glamour in makeup, coiffure, or attire, creating a credible small-town housewife. The director’s intermittent use of "Groundhog Day"-styled repetition of daily events and scenes in sections do lure the viewer into Linda’s time-challenged world and the impression that time is moving neither forward nor backward. The inter-spliced scenes push the narrative forward, and create a jagged, erratic timeline and a healthy discomfort and suspense in the viewer. Kelly’s implausible script does attempt to create surprise elements and add a more-than featherweight gravitas to the story with a sub-plot that the happily-married Hansons may not be so content with each other and their routine, while at the same time taking each other for granted. Nevertheless, Kate Nelligan’s character Joanne (Linda’s mother) and best friend Annie (Nia Long) are thinly written and, although performed adequately, do little to add to the narrative. The introduction of an advice-dispensing priest (Matt Moore) and syringe-wielding shrink (Peter Stormare) just add trite and over-the-top characters that make the plot line sag into this thinly woven tale.
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