Director – Denise Di Novi
Cast – Katherine Heigl, Rosario Dawson, Geoff Stults
Rating – 2/5
Mrinal Rajaram
Does the trope of an ex bent on ruining the life of her partner’s new girlfriend sound familiar? Well, it sure does, because it’s been done and overdone one too many times. The problem with Hollywood’s treatment of such films is that they never try and mix things up. It’s all the same clichés played back on a loop.
There’s the scheming ex who hasn’t yet gotten over the divorce from her husband, there’s the girlfriend who wants to be as friendly and accommodating as possible to her new fiancée, and there’s the unsuspecting ex-husband who thinks the rising tension between the two women in his life is all just a giant misunderstanding. When will filmmakers get an original thought when it comes to these thrillers? If originality is hard to find, it probably makes sense to do away with such films, altogether.
Julia (Dawson) is a successful editor who moves from a big city to be with her new fiancée, David (Stults). Unbeknownst to David, Julia was once a victim of domestic abuse. David’s daughter, Lily, visits his place a few times a week, being dropped off by his ex-wife, Tessa (Heigl).
Though not hostile to one another, Julia and Tessa maintain a careful distance at first. On the night David inaugurates his new brewery, Tessa pilfers Julia’s phone in order to snoop around about her past. When she finds out that Julia’s abusive ex-boyfriend has a restraining order against him, Tessa sets up a fake Facebook account in the former’s name and begins corresponding with the man.
Even the acting in Unforgettable is subpar. Katherine Heigl is terribly unconvincing in her role as the passive-aggressive control freak with tendencies that border on the psychotic. As is the case with thrillers of this nature, the plot starts to get predictable very quickly.
Every other frame has you wondering if you’ve seen this film before. You most certainly have! The context may be different but the characters are pretty much the same. If you have been paying any attention to the plot up until the 80 per cent mark, you would have probably guessed the ending too.
Let’s hope that Denise Di Novi learns from the pitfalls of her directorial debut to either choose a better feature the next time around or make a better film. As unfortunate as it sounds you’re going to want to forget this one rather soon.