Premonition

Have you ever felt so certain that a relationship was going to screw up that you went and did things that would have ended it anyway?

Sandra Bullock does comedy so well, but I like to see her take a dramatic challenge without falling back on that quirky smile. Premonition, a story of a woman grieving for her husband before he's dead, provides that opportunity. When the sheriff says her husband's died in a car accident, we are glued to the screen, waiting to see how she handles it. Then how she explains it to her two small children. The melodrama is handled well. Bullock rises to the challenge. The camera gives her all the time she needs. An unobtrusive score underlines, rather than dictates, our empathy.

Other aspects of the film are rather more controversial. The real themes are fidelity in marriage, reaping what you sow, and sowing wrong things for the right reasons. But it's also about time dislocation - hence the title - and it crosses genres rather less successfully. Especially if we have geared up to expect high-art of the likes of Memento, Fight Club or Donnie Darko. Even worse, the success of the Hitchcock-style ending is arguable. You could waste time arguing over continuity or simply take a dislike to it. A key to enjoying Premonition is finding its level and enjoying it without straying too much.

Bullock plays Linda Hanson. As Premonition opens, there is an almost dream-like sequence (shot in stark, bright, bluish tones) when her husband surprises her with a new house. She finds it hard to believe they could afford it, but he has the front door key in his hand.

There is a visual contrast as we move to the scene inside the house, shot now with warmer lighting and natural colours. Linda awakens and takes the kids to school (Dad's away). Shortly afterwards the sheriff breaks the sad news. She is plunged into grief. Memory flashbacks to her wedding - again the bluish-white tones - and Linda falls asleep on the couch. When she wakes again, she is in bed. Moreover, her husband has let himself in.

Linda's days now alternate worryingly between two realities - her husband is dead and funeral preparations are under way - or he is alive and she is dreading the accident happening. The cinematography sucks us into her mental state. At one point she is in a dream-world, gently meditative, driving along and nearly crashing the car. When she snaps into ferocious activity, it is signalled by hand-held-camera movements - such as when she slips and hurts her hand, covering it with blood.

When Linda awakes in the 'bereavement' reality, she looks for clues to find out what is happening. Days come at random, like a jigsaw puzzle. Details mystify, only to be explained when she later dream-experiences the day of their cause. She tears a page out of a phone book, or her daughter scars her face running through a sliding glass door. Yet the missing page, or the scars and stitches, appear at first like a frightening riddle. Events become self-fulfilled as earlier days fit into the enigma.

Linda's husband gets withdrawn - is it concern for her mental state or is he hiding something? She is needy in her affection towards him, terrified that he will die on a certain day. At one point she is on lithium - a strong medication used to treat bipolar disorder (or manic-depression), a disease that is characterised by periods of extreme moods (lithium is not usually prescribed lightly, and the casual way her doctor writes the prescription is worrying). Linda throws the tablets away.

Increasing preoccupation with her husband's faithfulness leads her to contemplate the rights and wrongs of his 'death'. Consulting a priest, she finds examples of premonitions in history. People who have lost their faith may have a blank space inside that can be 'taken over'. Pleasingly, the film stays largely within the realm of the psychological rather than escaping into some half-baked paranormal explanation.

Bullock commands the stage throughout. Although the children act quite convincingly, the other characters are mere ciphers - appropriate, perhaps, in case we are being lured to the view that it is all in her mind. Premonition manages to steer away from formula just enough to keep us in suspense.

A recent study on world-wide attitudes to marital fidelity characterised Americans as fixated about it to the point where concern over possible infidelity threatened what pleasure they derive from 'normal' relationships. Whereas many cultures accept affairs as an almost inevitable, if undesirable, concomitant to marriage, Americans obsess over it. They are poor at deception, and the wronged spouse may be destructively obsessive about finding resolution. Failure is not an option, and they find it increasingly hard to re-kindle passion in a light, flirty, sexy way. This applies very much to the film's characters. Linda, when she suspects her husband is having wandering thoughts, becomes clingy and demanding. He is often caught with guilty or evasive expressions, acting increasingly reserved.

It is a testament to the breadth that Bullock brings to her role that she manages to break through the coldness with which she is faced in the marriage. We see the story totally from her point of view. But if we invert it, and imagine it from her husband's viewpoint, it makes not only an equally compelling tale but maybe more sense.

The other important theme in Premonition is positive attitudes - and the destruction that negativity can wreak. Although tying up the ends of the 'premonitions diary' can be fun (and the scene where she tells her ruby-cheeked daughters that their dad has died is particularly annoying); the best way to enjoy the movie is perhaps by viewing it as twisted melodrama.

Sci-fi fans should be warned off. Premonition plays more to female sensitivities - and American preoccupation with affairs of the heart and soul.