JOSEPH RUBEN

Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB. 

USA, 2004.  Revolution Studios, Jinks/Cohen Company, Visual Arts Entertainment.  Screenplay by Gerald Di Pego.  Cinematography by Anastas N. Michos.  Produced by Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks, Joe Roth.  Music by James Horner. Production Design by Bill Groom.  Costume Design by Cindy Evans.  Film Editing by Richard Francis-Bruce.  

Julianne Moore plays a devoted mother who is still grieving for the child she lost in an airplane accident years earlier. When she notices that her photographs no longer bear his face, and, even more horrible, her husband (Anthony Edwards) insists that they never had a child, she starts to wonder if she’s insane or else why is everyone lying to her? Her psychiatrist (Gary Sinise) tells her that she’s actually delusional, and has made up the existence of a dead child following a miscarriage years before, but she’s convinced that she didn’t make her memories up and goes on a search for the truth about her boy. When she meets another bereaved parent (Dominic West) who lost his daughter in the same crash and forgot about her until Moore reminded him, she begins to suspect that something totally Twilight Zone is going on around her. Great actors are wasted in supporting roles, especially Alfre Woodard, in this ridiculously dark-looking but uninviting thriller. The story never really gets under full swing, and Joseph Ruben fails to create a convincingly chilly atmosphere that allows its viewers to suspend their disbelief. Moore is as good as always, but the material is well below her potential and she knows it.