Premonition

I love being entertained by the supernatural. Movies, books, graphic novels, the bible: anything that blends real life with something more extraordinary sends me into a geeky frenzy.




For most of my life, I've fallen way short of believing in things like ghosts, goblins, ESP, aliens and Noah.

But I want to.





I've only experienced one event in my life that even comes close to the supernatural. And if I talk long enough about it, I can come up with lots of other reasons the event occurred. But I prefer to think it involved ESP.

I was ten, and excited that some cousins were visiting from Maryland. It had been a long time since I last saw them. The kids were my age, and they were always up for playing in the creek and having rock fights.

Never had a rock fight? How odd...

My cousins were due to arrive the following morning, and I went to bed excited about seeing them. While sleeping, I had the oddest dream: In it, my cousin Laura was lying in a field of flowers, propped up on her left side. She was alive, but in some serious pain. Although she was clothed, there was a gash in her clothing, just to the right of her navel, out of which was flowing blood. She was moaning from the pain.

I woke up scared. I rarely remember dreams, and one this vivid was really unusual. Even though I was scared, I didn't tell anyone. Telling just seemed sorta goofy. When the family arrived we played together in the creek and had a couple of rock fights. I forgot about the dream.

Until about 48 hours later, when Laura had to have an emergency appendectomy.

Was the dream a premonition? A coincidence? I don't know. But it was kinda cool.

Premonition starts Sandra Bullock as Linda Hanson, a middle-aged wife and mother of two whose life has become stagnant. Her husband, who once adored her, is contemplating an affair. Linda--for the first time in her life--has a vivid, incredibly real premonition that her husband is killed in a car crash. During the off and on again premonition, she also discovers his desire for the affair. Hurt and angry, her dilemma becomes: Does she prevent the car accident from happening, or let her soon-to-be-cheating husband die in the crash.

Premonition is a much better film than I anticipated from its advertisement I saw earlier this year. It's complicated, multi-layered and fast-paced. Bullock's performance has a wide range; many of her scenes have to be acted out alone due to the nature of the story. That makes acting much more difficult, but she carries it off well.

The ending of the movie forces the audience to think about destiny, and how--and if--it's possible to alter destiny's course.