How do you stop looking for the answers to spiritual questions such as: How did I get here? Not just in terms of molecules and genes, but in terms of how did I get into this moment? What does this moment mean for those I touch? Norris Burkes

College girl and I went to see Premonition last night. It has provoked some interesting conversations between us. Most of this information you can find somewhere if you search for spoilers or have seen the previews. I’m trying not to give too much away. Both of us felt it could use some different writing. We liked the premise. There were some scenes where laughter was heard in the theatre, where I clearly don’t think they meant for laughter. And the music and the style of filming was a bit over the top. It’s almost a horror film, but not quite, so it has wannabe tendencies.

There were parts that I felt were very touching, such as when the priest tells her these sorts of things tend to come to someone who has lost faith, hope, and love, and she replies that she has lost all three. But clearly this has come to her to stop, not for any nefarious reasons. And if he has to die, so he won’t do what he is going to do on Weds, then when he changes his mind about doing it, there is no reason for him to die.

And another, when she tells her friend (in a future moment, not yet lived) that she and her husband have become roommates. How to change that before she gets to the point to say that to her friend.

Parts of the film are not clearly developed. It can’t seem to make up its mind what genre it is in. The dead crow; the creepy person at the lake (who could have been an angel with just a bit of a tweak.)

Other parts have faulty clues. This latter leads me to think, after talking with college girl that the entire movie waking or dreaming, outside the one day, could be all in her dream, because most dreams have disparate elements and inconsistencies that serve to wake us up because they make no sense.

An example is that in one possibility, a policeman comes to her door to tell her that her husband died. In another, she herself is present at the scene and in trying to stop it, causes it to happen, which is the reverse of the first scene. So she hasn’t got it right yet. But actually living it, might right it.

And the movie is about waking up to what is important in life and fighting for it. What would be the purpose for this if it didn’t accomplish it?

You almost have to map it out by days yourself to see what she has really lived vs. what is still a dream, if it all isn’t.

I believe that any time we would make a change in the present, the future would automatically change in some way, which would make her alternating dreams of the future fluctuate, no matter what she had seen in a previous dream, it too would segue into something else as soon as she lived the real day.

The time elements jump from the day she is living to a few days out, consecutively, unless you think of the whole movie as as dream, except for perhaps the last scene.

Her husband plays a not so likeable character who jumps into a happy-happy moment with his kids. I suppose he plays it creepy enough that you don’t know what’s what. But the scene with him and Claire is well done and shows that they both have the capability of showing emotions in a telling way, very believably.

College girl thinks she wakes up on the day she has just lived and lives it again or lives day 2 in reality vs. the dream.

Here’s her review:

Spoilers for Premonition

I just saw Premonition and I will start with this: it is my firm belief that a premonition is not fated to happen. It is not destiny or random happenstance. It is simply a singular or series of events showing what could be.

Depending upon how you view the movie it is either horror or thriller. There is a fine line but it’s there. It isn’t that scary even. My mother didn’t jump once and she’ll jump at a Buffy re-run she’s seen before at the unscariest part possible.

Sandra Bullock who played a housewife named Linda started the movie a complacent housewife. She was going through the motions you might say at least with Jim her husband. She got up, took the
kids to school, ran, did errands or housework, picked the kids up,made dinner, put the kids to bed, went to sleep. She and Jim were obviously drifting apart.

Jim had a two-face attitude almost but not really (and if you see the movie you’ll understand that line of commenting better) throughout the movie. He was either very happy and content or very ho-hum and unsatisfied. Later you’ll find he’s been kinda flirting and thinking he’s falling in love with his new manager Claire. On the day he dies he’s going to an interview that he elongates to have an affair with the woman.

I believe the only way to view this movie is to see is so disjointed. Linda by playing out either the beginning of the week (before Jim dies) and alternating by waking up in the end of the week (after Jim dies) gave her a unique perspective. Something she could possibly have received with another order but certainly effective in the current jumbled timeline. She loves Jim and she’ll fight for him (keeping him alive even if he doesn’t love her back anymore) and them.

Now if you’re a fatalist, the final day in the movie is Wednesday,the day Jim dies, Linda’s actions cause his death. She follows him in the car and to my relief they exchange words of love and affection. Jim had just before her call, received one from Claire who he told he couldn’t have an affair with, that it turned out wasn’t what he really wanted. He then called the house to try and reach Linda before she called him. Anyway a series of moments lead to his death. He should have gotten out of the car.

Well, if you believe the ending he’s dead. But as I see it Wednesday was the last day in her days of premonition. Linda as I think really goes back to Sunday and plays Sunday out very close to how she did before, by sending her husband off with the kids for a play day and making love with him that night. However I think she wakes up in the real world the next day and its Monday.

Jim is still kinda wooed by the idea of a new love with the excitement and romance his and Linda’s started with, but Linda with her foreknowledge, can fight this sway. Her weapons? Love and foresight. By the next Sunday (the day after the funeral) she and Jim are rock solid or on their way to be again. They both have realized this (their life together and their love for each other) is worth starting over for. They put the house on the market and go and buy the house on the lake that Linda sees during her
helter-skelter non-week.

The final scene and the only one shown (as the rest I’m putting in as my interpretation) is Linda pregnant with their third child and the movers ready to start taking things. She is woken up by their
two girls (who are obviously happy and excited something I don’t see them being so soon after their father’s supposed death despite/in spite of their mother being pregnant). We never see Jim, but I think Linda’s smile and the girls attitudes are a dead give away to his very real presence.

My only fly in the ointment is the eldest girl’s facial scars which are healing, indicating a lengthy bit of time… but wouldn’t Linda have been able to stop that if she had the week all over? [We discussed this, and even with stickers, if the scene had played out, the girl would have still had the accident in either scenario. But she would surely have said what happened, rather than being silent and the ramifications for her mother.]

Anyway the final scene of the movie should have showed all of them unpacking at the lake house and it would have been perfect and they wouldn’t have needed to film the new week.

So I give it a 3/5. Not bad, but not finished in telling the tale.

Have you seen it? How did you feel?
Karin

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