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Thursday morning is just like any other morning for suburban housewife Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock). She brings her two daughters to school. She goes jogging. She cleans the house and does the laundry. But that afternoon, Linda is visited by a police officer who informs her that her husband, Jim (Julian McMahon), was killed in a car accident the day before, on his way to a business meeting.
The next morning, Linda wakes up and finds Jim in the kitchen, having his breakfast and getting ready for work—as if the day before never happened. But then, on the next day, she wakes to find it’s the day of Jim’s funeral. Linda’s oldest daughter is covered in cuts, which Linda can’t explain. And, at the funeral, she meets a woman who claims to have talked to her the day before—but Linda doesn’t remember the conversation.
When Linda once again wakes up beside her husband, who’s still very much alive, she begins to realize that she’s having premonitions of events that haven’t happened yet—and that she still has a chance to fix the things that have gone wrong in her marriage and maybe even prevent her husband’s death.
As I watched Premonition, I couldn’t help but compare it to another recent Sandra Bullock film, The Lake House, a romantic drama with the same time-jumping, changing-the-future theme. After being pleasantly surprised by The Lake House, I decided to keep an open mind about Premonition—but I wasn’t quite as pleasantly surprised this time around. My dissatisfaction has nothing to do with Bullock, though. Once again, she gives a strong performance—and, once again, I can’t help but love her. The problem with Premonition, however, is in the writing. The story is filled with suspense, and it even has an interesting enough plot that will hold your attention as you try, along with Linda, to piece everything together, day by day. But the film also has its share of holes and inconsistencies, which will bother the careful viewer. It’s set up as a thriller that’ll make you think—but the more you think about it, the more things fall apart. When it ends, you’ll probably still feel entertained—I did—but you won’t necessarily feel satisfied by the way things work out (or, in some cases, don’t work out) in the end.
Premonition is a suspenseful and attention-grabbing film that’s sure to keep you entertained for a couple of hours. So it’s not bad. But if you put too much thought into it, you probably won’t find it all that satisfying, either.
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