Premonition (2007)

I've had the Premonition disc sitting around for months, and simply didn't get around to watching it. After I did, I was glad that I finally got to it.

Sandra Bullock plays Linda Hanson, a suburban housewife with a husband and two young daughters. Her life is pretty much average, until one day she awakens to the reality that her husband is dead. However, she keeps getting premonitions (hence the title) of other adverse events that are going to happen affecting herself and family. As the tale gets told, in a series of nonconsecutive days of the week, we learn about marital difficulties with her husband, her relationship with her mother, the daughter's accident that she can't remember, and a psychiatrist that thinks she's psychotic works on getting her committed.

Premonition reminded me of another film that runs out of order, Memento. In that film, the story is told backwards to simulate the memory disorder where the main character has no short term memory. In Premonition, we're a lot more jumbled as there's no true order, but characters and subplots keep getting revealed in bite size pieces for easy digestion. While it sounds like it is very confusing, I'd say that it's only mildly so, and makes us identify with our protagonists unsettling feeling of each time she wakes up to start a new day, she's not sure if her husband is alive or dead.

Overall, I enjoyed Premonition. It's an interesting drama, that attempts to break new ground in the sequence of storytelling. Also, don't miss the DVD's featurette that shows the story sequence chronologically after you see the film to get some insight on how the whole thing fits together.

Overall Grade: B+

Reviewed by Jonas