Forgetting the Girl

"Forgetting the Girl" is one of those movies that sticks with you long after the credits roll. Not an easy feat, but one that I consider essential for a film in order to remember it, discuss it to death, and even dream about it. Yes, I dreamt about this movie long after I saw it, the visceral images and suspenseful storyline lingering in my mind many a night. Kudos to director Nate Taylor and writer Peter Moore Smith for fashioning a totally original story in this day and age of cookie-cutter flicks.

The film starts out as a slightly rom-com look at the life of a New York-based headshot photographer named Kevin (played by the eerie Christopher Denham in a remarkable tour-de-force). Always searching for the perfect girl, perhaps one to take the place of his sister, Kevin asks every photography subject out on a date to mostly awkward results. His lovelorn assistant Jamie, a tough-looking goth girl with her own serious issues portrayed by the extraordinary Lindsay Beamish with a perpetual wounded look in her eyes, will do anything to make Kevin her own, even though she doesn't seem to exist in his eyes. All that changes when one of Kevin's dates goes missing. What follows is a labyrinth of twists and turns that slowly turn into something more powerful and psychologically disturbing than one would expect. In fact, it left me breathless. To give any more plot points away would be a crime, but you can call me guilty of loving this movie.

"Forgetting the Girl" is one of those singular movies that challenges the viewer to give up all expectations of the norm, forcing one to dive headfirst into the mind of a very complex character. I, for one, was swept away.

Forgetting the Girl is a dark and twisted film that left me emotionally drained and mildly concerned who might be living next door. The director (Nate Taylor) brilliantly crafts a slow build of tension and dark suspicion as the viewer is drawn into an uncomfortable intimacy with the lead character played by Christopher Denham. Denham masterfully portrays a deeply and genuinely disturbed individual struggling to find some sense of normalcy in a relationship while surrounding himself with equally, if not more overtly damaged personae. Deserving of special mention for her amazing performance is Lindsay Beamish who played Denham's obsessive and thoroughly screwed up assistant.

The slow build of this film is laced with such real emotion and frightening honesty that I was left wondering whether the director did some extracurricular study of mental health issues to so succinctly draw out such amazing insights into the psychoses of his characters. Even after the crescendo, the director (and Beamish) left me wondering whether the reveal answered all of the mysteries crafted throughout the film or if there was more than meets the eye. This movie makes me want to run background checks on my neighbors…or not have any neighbors. I'm not sure. A+ job by the Director, cast and crew.

Haunted by a traumatic history, photographer Kevin Wolfe (Christopher Denham) struggles to systematically forget all his bad memories, but erasing his past threatens to consume his future.

You know, there have been half unicorn, half Pegasus ideas for a long, long time... not least of which is "My Little Pony".

I watched this film thinking it would be a horror picture. Turns out it really is not... at all. There is one brief gore moment, but overall the focus is on a man's failure to maintain long-term relationships... and then how he forgets them.

The film is beautifully shot, and oddly engrossing. While I could not really recommend it, there was nothing to dislike either... and it was quite a piece of art.

I don't see the point. How is this entertaining? How did anyone manage to convince anyone else, let alone a whole movie crew to make this? How did those aspiring actors and actress decide this was a good career move?

Maybe I missed the point. Maybe I'm just happy living my life not wanting to understand what it's like to be sick in the head. But I definitely wish I hadn't wasted those two hours of my life. This movie I definitely want to forget.

This film takes the viewer on a journey through the psyche of a bewildered man in his youth, who's inherent desire, not unlike those which we all experience, for human compassion, emotional connection, and acceptance of loss and denial, begin to drastically affect not only his life, but the lives of the people in which he befriends and confides in. Forgetting the Girl, seems to float within a realm of "non-genre", although that is not to say that the narrative isn't being represented in such a way that the viewer cannot discern the stories purpose, but that it plays between the boundary lines of a pseudo romance, drama, thriller and horror at the same time and achieves this with ease and an apparent show of skill and cinematic knowledge. This film is filled with moments that will draw you in, grab your attention, and then within the span of a few frames, completely throw that all of out the window, leave you with your hands over your head, eyes glued to the screen ,cringing, but all the while wanting to do it all over again. The beauty of a film like this is that it allows the audience to ask questions not only of themselves but the characters and the story as well as their expectations and interpretations of how things will play out, and it has done so with purpose. Highly recommended. Check it out and enjoy.