Unforgettable
UNFORGETTABLE (2017)
Starring Rosario Dawson, Katherine Heigl, Geoff Stults, Cheryl Ladd, Sarah Burns, Whitney Cummings, Simon Kassianides, Isabella Kai Rice, Robert Ray Wisdom, Jayson Blair, Alex Quijano, Marissa D’Onofrio, Aline Elasmar, Kincaid Walker, Leslie A. Hughes, Lauren Rose Lewis and Mitch Silpa.
Screenplay by Christina Hodson.
Directed by Denise Di Novi.
Distributed by Warner Bros. 100 minutes. Rated R.
Sometimes a movie’s title is just so blatantly courting a snarky critical rebuttal that it cannot be ignored. So, here goes; there is nothing the least bit memorable about Unforgettable.
Unforgettable is just yet another variation of a Hollywood staple – the psycho ex from Hell. And it is not a particularly good variation, either.
Granted, the filmmakers tried to be a little adventurous with the against-type casting of the leads. Former rom-com fave Katherine Heigl plays the deranged ex. (You can tell right away that she is evil because she has an Ivanka hairdo). Quirkier indie actress Rosario Dawson plays the more white-bread perfect-girlfriend-with-a-past character.
However, that pretty much is where their slight adventurous streak ended. The rest of this is pretty much cookie-cutter Hollywood thriller fare.
Dawson plays Julia, a San Francisco website editor who has fallen in love and decided to move in with David (Geoff Stults), owner of an LA microbrewery startup, and his adorable daughter Lily (Isabella Kai Rice).
They live in a huge home, with lovely furniture and nice cars, despite the fact that she is a website editor and he is a guy trying to start a microbrewery. In fairness, the script tells us this is the house he grew up in, but how do they pay all the other bills? Particularly since Julia never seems to actually work at her website job.
However, things look like they are going perfectly, but quickly David’s gorgeous and completely humorless ex-wife Tessa (Heigl) starts inserting herself into their life. It quickly becomes obvious that Tessa is trying to sabotage their relationship, though only Julia seems to believe it is happening.
Tessa breaks into the house, steals Julia’s cell phone, some jewelry and some panties. Then she breaks into the phone, finding lots of boudoir shots of Julia as well as such useful information as her birth certificate and a restraining order to keep a violent ex-lover of Julia’s away. (Note to self: don’t leave boudoir shots, your birth certificate and particularly restraining orders up on the cloud.)
Tessa makes a fake Facebook account for Julia and contacts the violent ex pretending to be her. In the meantime, Tessa starts a campaign of dirty tricks to make Julia seem unreliable and perhaps unhinged.
Of course, things escalate to a full-out cat fight over the guy, with everyone believing that Julia is the aggressor.
Unforgettable is slick, exciting and kind of dumb in equal measures. Dawson feels kind of miscast in the role of the heroine, but interestingly Heigl’s icy beauty brings a brittle intensity to the role that she never had in lighter fare like The Ugly Truth and 27 Dresses.
The rest of the cast is fine, if not really standing out, other than former Charlie’s Angel Cheryl Ladd’s icy performance as Tessa’s passive-aggressive mother. Let’s just say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Truth is, the movie is perfectly enjoyable trash as you watch it. Unfortunately for a film called Unforgettable, it recedes like a dream the moment the end credits roll.
Dave Strohler
Copyright ©2017 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: April 21, 2017.
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