Premonition

Playing with time rather than sticking to a straight narrative has become a given for all supernatural thrillers post M Night Shyamalan. But Premonition takes this so far that forget the viewer, even the filmmakers give up trying to piece it back together. Having gone back and forth, back and forth over seven days that8217;s my safe bet, but do try and make your own, the film abruptly ends, takes a breath and then suddenly speeds 6-7 months into the future.

Linda Quinn Bullock is having the strangest time of her life. She sleeps every night with her husband Jim McMahon alive and lying next to her, and wakes up with him dead and her life spinning out of control. She soon starts wondering if she is going crazy, or is it a conspiracy, about which part is real and which imagined. And, if her husband is indeed going to die, does she have the strength to save him.

Suspecting that Jim is planning an extra-marital affair, angry at him for lying to her, Linda asks the most intelligent question of the film: 8220;If I let Jim die, is it as good as killing him?8221;

The premise isn8217;t bad; the problem lies with the execution. You can endure Jim getting killed even three times, but when Linda8217;s world takes a spin every time she shuts her eyes, the overkill starts getting to you. At one point Linda tears a huge sheet of paper and tries to write down what happened when, or what she imagined when, to figure out the day Jim would actually die. She frantically draws lines, scribbles words and makes mental calculations, to eventually settle on 8220;Wednesday8221;.

What would be simpler of course is confronting her husband, with whom for all practical purposes she has a decent relationship. But that of course won8217;t make a movie.

Bullock is earnest enough to make Linda likable, but McMahon has our vote for getting his job down pat. When he is dead they never show him, but alive you can8217;t tell the difference. Distant and cold, he could almost be a dead man walking.

Perhaps he saw to the end of the film and had a premonition: this ain8217;t working.