FORGOTTEN

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: adultery, sexual content, thematic elements

Rated:

The little girls are beautiful. The run with long golden curls through the autumn festival, stringing banners behind them. One in particular stands out, the leader of the group. She takes her laughing friends into the woods ... and never returns.

Ben Turner (Paul McGann) has just returned from his father's funeral. A contented bookshop owner in a little English village where nothing extraordinary ever happens, he is happily married and has a beautiful daughter. Emmy (Karis Copp) is something of a loner, teased at school and with very few friends, but the disappearance of the local female bully has her particularly jarred. Her loneliness encourages her to seek the approval and love of the latest at the Bed & Breakfast. Rachel Monroe (Amanda Burton) is on holiday from her family, and shows an immediate interest in the Turners. Ben's wife Natalie (Zara Turner) rapidly discovers that their visitor has a quick temper and a mysterious past. Her husband also knows there's something infinitely familiar about her, something he cannot quite put his foot on.

Called into the investigation is Det. Chief Inspector Paris (Kathryn Howden) from London. There is no sign of the little girl, but all indications point to a horrible crime. The means of her disappearance, the fact that she may have been strangled with a skipping rope, that no body has yet been found, is a throwback to a case some twenty years earlier in which the daughter of a woman named Carla Hayden vanished. Little does the township know that Carla is actually Rachel Monroe. A man was convicted of the crime of kidnapping her daughter and killing her, but managed to skip out on probation. The police presumed he was dead after throwing himself off a cliff, but Rachel knows better ... and believes it is Ben Turner.

What follows becomes an intriguing game of assumptions, blackmail, kidnapping, and murder with a surprising and controversial twist ending. The audience has so many suspects to choose from that they don't quite know where to turn, and the instant one conclusion is formed, another hastens forward to take its place. It's very well written if not slightly sinister. Amanda Burton is very under-appreciated in general but this film relies heavily on her abilities. She is a remarkably frightening character, one that is so cold and resolved that you could believe her capable of anything. McGann by contrast is personable but not without his darker nature. It's an excellent pairing and the rest of the cast merely rounds out the force field these two create. There's also a wonderful appearance by Christopher Villiers as the local police chief. (Scarlet Pimpernel fans might recognize him as Sir Andrew.)

Forgotten deals with many thematic topics including the abduction and murder of children, and a woman's quest for vengeance. Language is limited to one use of s**t and a few mild profanities. There's minimal violence, although a girl's waterlogged body is found, discussion over a bloodied skipping rope leads to theories that she was strangled, and some local boys are chased after and threatened with violence by Ben after throwing eggs at his window. A man is slapped very hard across the face; a woman nearly drowns. Ben and Natalie become physical in the kitchen; he opens her shirt and kisses down to her waist. Just as they're getting started on the counter, Rachel interrupts them. Later, they start making out on the couch. What disappointed me the most was that Ben and Rachel commit adultery in a moment of angry passion. There are consequences, but it wasn't needed to further the plot.

The primary reason I rented this was to see Amanda Burton, and she was remarkable. It's a good mystery but severely flawed, and the conclusion leaves the audience wondering about the truth behind her daughter's murder. Speculation is fun, but leaves a lot of unresolved issues.