Premonition (2007 film)
| Premonition | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Mennan Yapo |
| Written by | Bill Kelly |
| Produced by | Ashok Amritraj Jon Jashni Adam Shankman Jennifer Gibgot Sunil Perkash Nick Hamson |
| Starring | Sandra Bullock Julian McMahon Nia Long Kate Nelligan Amber Valletta Courtney Taylor Burness Shyann McClure |
| Cinematography | Torsten Lippstock |
| Edited by | Neil Travis |
| Music by | Klaus Badelt |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date | March 16, 2007 |
Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million |
| Box office | $84,146,832[1] |
Premonition is a 2007 American drama supernatural thriller film directed by Mennan Yapo and starring Sandra Bullock, Julian McMahon, and Amber Valletta. The film's plot depicts a depressed housewife named Linda who experiences premonitions about her husband's death and the events that follow afterward and how she attempts to save him from his impending doom.
Contrary to popular belief, the film is not a remake of the 2004 Japanese horror film Premonition and is its own original story.
Plot
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (June 2013) |
Prologue
Jim (Julian McMahon) surprises his wife Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) with a new house.
Thursday
Many years later, Linda and Jim have two daughters, Megan (Shyann McClure) and Bridgette (Courtney Taylor Burness). While Jim is away on a business trip, Linda is left to take care of the girls.
Linda talks with her friend Annie (Nia Long), who asks how Linda and Jim are, since their relationship had gotten into a rut. Then Linda goes through various chores. When she checks the answering machine there is from Jim, and he says that he meant everything he said in front of the kids the other night and he wants her to know that he was sincere. He spots a call waiting on his phone and mutters "Is that you?" before hanging up. Linda calls him back and leaves a message.
The doorbell rings and Linda opens the door to Sheriff Reilly (Marc Macaulay), who tells Linda that her husband died in a car accident on the previous day. After picking her girls up from school, Linda sadly tells them that their father won’t be coming home. Linda’s mother, Joanne (Kate Nelligan), is over as well and occupies Linda's daughters. After putting the kids to bed, Joanne talks with her daughter. She tells Linda that although it is difficult, they should start making funeral arrangements and look over Linda and Jim's insurance plans. Linda tells her mother that she is not ready yet. Linda falls asleep on the living room couch.
Monday
Linda wakes up in bed, dressed in a nightgown and covered with sheets and blankets. Confused, she gets up and knocks on the guest room door. No one is inside. Linda walks downstairs, where Jim is at the counter drinking coffee and watching TV. Linda is shocked. Jim asks her what’s wrong, but she can only mutter that she’s had a bad dream. Megan and Bridgette come running down the stairs, with Bridgette again complaining about being late for school. Jim asks Linda to take the kids to school because he’s late for work and rushes off.
Still in a daze, Linda drops off the kids. As she drives on, she makes an abrupt stop that angers drivers around her, and she is approached by Sheriff Reilly, who warns her to be more careful. The sheriff acts as if he's never met her before. Linda returns home to her chores but notices the rainbow sweater again. She walks outside to hang laundered bedsheets. While she tries to spread out a sheet, she trips on a toy and falls backwards. She falls onto the dead body of a black crow and gets its blood on her hand. On her way into the house, she gets blood all over the glass door (which now has no stickers on it) and on the sink. After she’s regained some of her senses, Linda goes back out wearing rubber gloves and throws the dead animal into the trash. The day ends with a family dinner, the girls reporting a boring day.
Saturday
Linda wakes up the next day. She notices a bottle of wine and a glass on the nightstand. She can't find Jim in the shower, but finds an empty prescription bottle of lithium with pills scattered in the sink. The label on the bottle states the pills were prescribed by Doctor Norman Roth. She finds the mirrors in the house covered in sheets while she makes her way downstairs. Still in her husband’s shirt, she encounters family and friends wearing mourning garb. Annie is there and assures Linda that the kids are safe outside. Linda finds the girls on the swing set. Bridgette has her back turned to the camera and when Linda runs over, there are terrible red gashes all over the girl’s face. Linda caresses her daughter’s face and asks what happened. Megan tells her mom that she does not see any scars and her sister looks perfect. Linda is still confused but agrees for her daughters’ sakes.
When they arrive at the church stairs, Linda sends the family inside, walks to the hearse and demands that they open the coffin. The funeral director assures her that everything is on schedule but tries to stop her from reaching the coffin. Suddenly the coffin falls out of the hearse, opening, and the action suggests that her late husband's head rolls onto the pavement. Then she screams uncontrollably.
At the burial, a young priest is giving the eulogy for Jim, describing him as a wonderful man who always put his family first. Linda notices a blonde woman (Amber Valletta) standing to the side of the funeral group, hiding behind a tree. Neither Joanne nor Linda recognizes the woman, but when Linda walks over, the woman apologizes and tells Linda that she thought it would be okay to come since they’d talked a day earlier. Linda is still confused, but the woman speeds off before Linda can ask more questions.
Back at the house, Linda has changed and is wearing blue jeans. She frantically flips through the phone book. The page with Dr. Roth's listing has been torn out, but she finds the page in her trashcan. She calls the office, and a recorded message states that the office is only open during weekdays. When she comes back downstairs later, all is well, until the doorbell rings and several men enter the room. One introduces himself as Dr. Norman Roth (Peter Stormare), and with him are his assistants and Sheriff Reilly. Annie rushes to get the children to bed as Linda is hauled away kicking and screaming. It seems that they think Linda has mental problems because she cannot seem to remember how the cuts on Bridgette's face happened. Joanne apologizes but tells Linda that she needs help.
Linda is taken to a mental health care facility and overhears the sheriff and Dr. Roth talking. The sheriff tells the doctor that he informed Linda of her husband's death on Thursday. The doctor recounts Linda's visit from Tuesday, when she claimed her husband was already dead. Linda is sedated by injection and fades out.
Tuesday
Linda wakes up in her own bed again. She can't find a trace of the injection on her arms. She hears a running shower and runs into the bathroom. She goes into the shower, nightgown and all, and holds Jim. At breakfast, she is happy to see that Bridgette's face is wound-free. After dropping the girls off at school, she stops in her driveway and opens the garbage to discover the crow's body inside. Inside the house she goes through the phone book, finds Dr. Roth's entry, rips out the page and drives to his office. He doesn't recognize her and initiates a session where she tells him of seeing Jim alive and then dead again. At the end of the session he prescribes lithium.
Linda goes to her husband’s office and asks to speak to him in private. She wants the family to get away for a while, but Jim rejects the idea. There’s a knock on his office door and it is Claire, the blond girl from the funeral. She’s the company’s new assistant manager and has been working with Jim. The two leave for a meeting, and Linda glimpses that Jim places his hand on the small of Claire's back as they walk away.
Later that day, the children are playing in the front yard, and Linda is in the bathroom considering the lithium. She shakes out two pills, then six, then allows the entire contents to fall into the sink along with the bottle.(This is the bottle that she sees on Saturday. However, on Thursday the bottle is not there.)
Linda recognizes that it's starting to rain and yells to the girls to hurry to the back yard and grab the sheets from the clothesline. Coming down the stairs, she sees Bridgette running toward the glass doors and urges her to stop. Bridgette can't tell the door is closed and runs through it, breaking the glass and hurting her face and hands. Linda hurries the girls to the emergency room and Jim arrives . Back at home, Linda puts the girls to bed, covers the mirrors in the house so that Bridgette cannot see her scars, and tells the girls that as far as she's concerned there are no scars, and they're both beautiful. All these things are true for the morning, she also talked to Jim on that Thursday, while he died on Wednesday. This could be explained by the fact that Thursday was some sort of 'portal day'. Everything was 'normal' up to the point that the sheriff came to her house.
Meanwhile, Jim is sweeping up the glass from Bridgette’s fall. He asks why she hasn’t put the stickers up yet, and Linda says that she thought she had. He tells her that he asked Linda's mother to live with them until Linda feels better.
Linda walks upstairs, takes off her jacket, and feels the crumpled phone book paper in her back pocket. She throws it in the trash. But the sight of the paper in the basket triggers her memory and she makes a timeline of the week's events. Tuesday is when she meets Dr. Roth for the first time, when her daughter gets the cuts. Thursday is when she gets the news about the accident and her mother stays over. She hasn’t experienced Friday yet, but Saturday is the funeral. She hides the paper under the tablecloth and goes to talk to Jim. She begs him not to go, but seeing that it's no good, requests that "If tomorrow is Wednesday, please, please wake me up before you leave." He promises.
Friday
Linda wakes up on the living room couch, understands it is Friday and drives to Claire’s house. Linda asks if they should be talking about something regarding Jim. Claire’s swollen and tear-covered face tells it all as she asks who told her. Linda replies that Claire just did.
Linda goes out to talk with Annie. Annie gives her sympathy to Linda, saying that all of this is so terrible – Jim's death, and discovering her husband was planning to have an affair. Linda replies that maybe it isn’t so bad. Jim may not have done anything yet, but the affair would have had a destructive impact on their family. She tells Annie that maybe all of this was meant to happen. Annie is surprised, but Linda knows that things are coming together for her.
Linda then visits the insurance agent to confirm the stability of her family's future. He tells her that everything is covered, because Jim came in the morning of his accident and tripled his life insurance plans. Linda is very confused but thanks him. After making funeral arrangements, Linda tells her mother that she’s made all the plans. Her mother’s reaction is similar to Annie’s and later that night she goes to talk to her daughter. With a glass of wine at her side and dressed in Jim’s shirt, Linda asks her mother whether, if Linda let Jim die, that would be the same as killing him; but Joanne replied that Jim is already dead, eliciting an enigmatic glare from Linda.
Sunday
Linda wakes up on the previous Sunday. She sends Jim off with the kids while she drives to the church. There, she speaks with Father Kennedy (Jude Ciccolella) and explains that she’s scared. He’s surprised to see her, because it has been a while since she has been in church. Kennedy has an entire book detailing incidents similar to hers. A woman during the colonial period predicted a terrible hurricane coming in and destroying the entire town. She was hanged as a witch, and two days later, the town was destroyed by a hurricane with gale force winds. In a more recent period, a man from 1918 saw the gravestones of his two young children in a dream during the influenza pandemic. He went home and shot the children to save them from the pain of the sickness, but the autopsies showed that they were never infected. The man ended up killing himself a week later. Kennedy explains that the faithless are like empty vessels. There’s nothing inside, so they’re more susceptible to greater forces. He says that she must have faith and that life itself can be a miracle. Linda tells Kennedy that she does not believe in miracles, but she desperately needs faith and stability right now and asks him how she can get it. Kennedy tells her that faith is simply the belief in something you can’t see or touch, but you can feel, such as love and hope. She must find something to believe in, something she’s willing to fight for. Linda tearfully tells the Father that she does not know what to fight for.
Eventually, Linda visits the site of the accident. She parks her car and stands in the middle of the road. She stares at the "Mile 220" sign, which is where Sheriff Reilly told her the accident took place. Images of her family flash before her eyes as Linda tries to decide what to do. Her thoughts are interrupted by another car passing, and she gets back into her car.
That night, Linda puts pressure on Jim. When the kids go to give their father a goodnight hug, Linda tells them to give him an extra hug and to tell their father how much they love him. Jim hugs the kids back but does not say anything. Linda asks him why he’s not returning the sentiment and Jim is taken aback. He holds the girls close and tells them that he loves them more than anything. They ask him if he loves Linda too, and he says he does, which explains the message Jim left on Linda's answering machine.
Jim finds Linda standing in the yard. It is raining heavily, but Linda refuses to budge. Jim joins her and asks her what’s wrong. She starts to tell him that they are not the same family they used to be and wants thing to go back to how they were. Jim tells her that they are still that family, that things are just different. Linda starts to cry as a storm starts. A lightning bolt hits the power lines and kills a crow that falls to the ground. Jim takes Linda into the house after a rogue powerline heads toward them and they retreat to their room. Jim sighs as he sits down on his bed. Linda embraces him as she apologizes for everything. Later Jim holds Linda close and she tells him that she’s had a dream where he died. He tells her that it is just a dream and that everything will be fine.
Wednesday
Linda wakes up in her bed once again. Since she can't be sure what day it is, she calls Annie, who tells her that it is Wednesday. Linda runs down the stairs knowing that today is the day of the accident. She finds a note from Jim saying that he’s taking the kids to school and will be back tomorrow. Linda begins to search for Jim.
Meanwhile, Jim drops the kids off at school, then goes to the insurance company. He looks worried as he raises the amount of the life insurance. Later, as he makes a turn to get onto the highway, he gets a call from Claire. She’s just arrived in their hotel room and is very excited. Jim tells her that he can’t go through with the affair, and he hangs up.
Jim then calls the house and leaves the message from the beginning of the film. At the same time, Linda is trying to reach Jim. After hearing a beep signaling that he has another call, Jim hangs up realizing that it is Linda. He answers the call. The two have a touching reconciliation, Linda asks him to pull over to the shoulder of the road and Jim pulls over. Linda notices that they have reached the "Mile 220" sign and tells Jim that if he trusts her, he must turn around. Jim does, but not before narrowly being missed by a speeding car. He stops the car and is unable to get it started again. Linda notices a fuel truck approaching and she is now hysterical, screaming at Jim to get out of the car. Jim keeps trying to start the car. Realizing that he's losing time, Jim tries to open his car door, but he can't. The truck jackknifes and slams into Jim’s car, crushing its roof and causing the vehicles to explode, presumably killing Jim. Linda starts to cry uncontrollably.
Epilogue
The movie ends with Linda home asleep on a mattress with no sheets. Her daughters run in and tell her that the moving truck has arrived. Linda kisses her daughters and comments that her daughter's scars from the accident are healing well. The girls then leave the room and do not close the door. Linda moves to sit on the edge of the bed when suddenly Father Kennedy's voice runs through her head, saying that every day we’re alive can be a miracle. She smiles and gets up, exposing a pregnant belly.
Alternate Script
The film originally ended with Linda's husband, Jim, living and her saving him instead of the truck crashing into his car. They decided to take an alternate route by making it a "bitter-sweet" ending. Although her husband dies, she is now pregnant from their last night together.
Cast
- Sandra Bullock as Linda Hanson
- Julian McMahon as James "Jim" Hanson
- Courtney Taylor Burness as Bridgette Hanson
- Shyann McClure as Megan Hanson
- Nia Long as Annie
- Kate Nelligan as Joanne
- Amber Valletta as Claire Francis
- Marc Macaulay as Sheriff Reilly
- Jude Ciccolella as Father Kennedy
- Peter Stormare as Dr. Norman Roth
- Mark Famiglietti as Doug Caruthers
- E.J. Stapleton as Model Home Salesman
- Matt Moore as Priest
- Irene Zeigler as Mrs. Quinn
- Marcus Lyle Brown as Bob
Production
Principal photography and filming mostly took place in Minden, and Shreveport Louisiana.
Release
The film was first released in the U.S. on March 12, 2007. The film was not released theatrically in Norway, it was released direct-to-video on January 2, 2008 in that country.
Home Media
The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 17, 2007.
Reception
Box office
Premonition opened in 2,831 theaters and came in third place behind 300 and Wild Hogs, and grossed $17,558,689 with a $6,202 average. The film stayed in theaters for 7 weeks and grossed $47,852,604 in the United States and $84,146, 832 worldwide.[1]
Critical Reception
The film received mostly negative reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 8% of 157 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 3.8 out of 10. The site's general consensus is that "Overdosing on flashbacks, and more portentous than profound, the overly obtuse Premonition weakly echoes such twisty classics as Memento, The Sixth Sense, and Groundhog Day."[2] Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, the film is considered to have "mixed or average reviews" with a rating score of 29 based on 30 reviews.[3] Despite the weak reviews, several critics, including Rex Reed, commended Sandra Bullock for her performance.[4]
References
- ^ a b "Box Office Performance". Box Office Mojo.
- ^ "Premonition (2007)". IGN Entertainment. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-12-25.
- ^ "Premonition Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2009-12-25.
- ^ "See Sandra Bullock!: Gorgeous star has weird visions in so-so mystery Premonition". The New York Observer. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
