Review: ‘Amnesiac’ a forgettable thriller
Kate Bosworth stars in the thriller “Amnesia.”
A car accident leads to memory loss and eventually captivity terror for Wes Bentley’s housebound character in the stilted thriller “Amnesiac.”
Director Michael Polish (“Twin Falls Idaho”) starts with woozy images of Bentley driving a ‘60s-model car, with Kate Bosworth in the passenger seat and a girl (Olivia Rose Keegan) in the back seat. But when he awakens to find Bosworth — whom he doesn’t remember — playing the inordinately watchful wife, he begins to suspect she’s not what she seems.
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As the revelations emerge in the simplistically twisty script by Mike Le and Amy Kolquist, Polish occasionally tries to enliven the dull prisoner stuff with bursts of violence and near-saves by knocking visitors (a delivery guy, the police). But you always get the sense he’s less interested in genre pleasures and would rather hurry back to the routinely atmospheric interior cinematography and his leads’ stiff performances, especially Bosworth’s dolled-up, wax oddball, whose peculiarities — rattling off weird bits of trivia — are little more than an amateur screenwriter stunt to distract from the final, unsurprising surprise.
With no names given to the characters, you never have to remember them. But it’s really best to forget about all of “Amnesiac.”
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“Amnesiac.”
No MPAA rating.
Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.
Playing at Arena Cinema, Hollywood. Also on VOD.
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