Premonition is proof positive that imaginatively fractured storytelling like Memento doesn’t actually always work. Sandra Bullock stars as mother and housewife Linda Hanson in this slapdash and nonsensical dramatic thriller, a jumbled mix of time-bending suspense elements and tones.



Linda has a beautiful house, a loving husband and two adorable daughters. Still, though her life is outwardly perfect, not all is quite right at the homestead. Then one day Linda receives devastating news that her husband Jim (Julian McMahon) has died in a car accident. When she wakes up the next morning to find him alive and well, she assumes it was all a dream, but is shaken by how vivid it felt. Linda soon realizes it wasn’t a simple dream, though, and that instead her world is turning upside down. Further surreal circumstances lead her to discover that her perfect life may not have been all that it appeared. Desperate to save her family, Linda begins a furious race against time and fate to try and preserve everything that she and Jim have built together.

Premonition has a loose narrative of of personal-stakes investigation, but is frugal in design and lacking in detail and rationality. Visual touchstones are scattered haphazardly throughout (a dead crow here, a bottle of wine there), but they hold neither any concrete meaning nor any surreal, anxiety-provoking allure; they’re just coded markers, wanly tossed into the mix to indicate where we are on a timeline continuum. Furthermore, there are no sustained, legitimate attempts to truly dissect Linda’s presentiments, or assign her plight any importance. A few thinly sketched supporting characters wander in and out of the proceedings, but do little to realistically impact it. As if these stultifying inanities weren’t enough, Premonition also (and most damningly) just comes off as boring, just plain and simple.

Available in either full-screen or widescreen, and housed in a regular Amray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Premonition’s tricked-out DVD release comes loaded with enough bonus materials to make folks perhaps think it’s a worthwhile title. Supplemental extras include a collection of deleted scenes, including an alternate ending with optional director’s commentary, a look at the making of the movie with interviews from the cast and crew, a look at the major events of the movie put in “normal” order and narrated by freshman director Mennan Yapo, a short documentary about people who in real life people have had premonitions about their own futures, and a short blooper reel, which shows that at least some laughs were squeezed out of this lemon. There’s also an audio commentary track with Yapo and Bullock. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. F (Movie) B+ (Disc)