User reviews

"Du hast es Versprochen", which is the original German title and sounds a whole lot cooler than the international "Forgotten", is a traditional and mildly clichéd thriller that is nevertheless atmospheric throughout and building up towards a tense climax through solid performances and steady direction. The plot contains many basic elements that you've undoubtedly seen a dozen of times before and the vast majority of story twists are fairly easy to predict well in advance, but still it's quite admirable to see how the young writer/director Alex Schmidt turned the talkative script into a compelling and eerie film. Hanna and Clarissa, two beauties in their mid 30's coincidentally meet again under strange circumstances. Some twenty years ago, they were best friends and spent their holidays together at a small island community, but then they got separated. Since Hanna just caught her husband cheating on her, and Clarissa is still recovering from a suicide attempt, they decide to pick up their friendship and go back to the island for old times' sake. Once back on the island, many dark secrets and traumas that Hanna seemingly suppressed over the years come back to the surface. There was a third girl on the island, Maria, and she mysteriously vanished in the same year as Hanna and Clarissa's last holiday. Presumed long dead already, Maria's body was never recovered and the mystery surrounding her disappearance still endangers Hanna and her own 9-year-old daughter Lea. The small fishing island community, where it still appears to be the year 1909 since there aren't any paved roads or electronic devices anywhere, forms an ideal setting for a tale like this. There are large forests to get lost in, a lighthouse, castle ruins and – of course – those typical suspicious local yokels. Overall a praiseworthy European thriller that is worth the price of an entrance ticket if you encounter it at a festival, or something.

I watched because it's in German and I can confirm that this film is excellent for German listening practice. The dialogue was extremely simple and brief so it was very easy to follow. I watched with German subtitles for any dialogue I might miss and I barely needed them.

So that's one reason why it's not so great as a film; the script.

What I liked was that the plot unfolded in a much more realistic way than I expected (I won't expand because I don't want to include spoilers) however, the various techniques employed to constantly remind viewers of the tag lines was fairly amateur: certain phrases kept being repeated and the entire film has been done 1000 times before.

I didn't like Mina Tander in the lead. Her acting was by-the-numbers and she just didn't have much charisma in this film. By that I mean, she didn't stand out. It didn't help that Laura de Boer was, in contrast, extremely charismatic and natural. I didn't believe the friendship between the two; their scenes felt very forced as did their smiles however, the acting was fine for the most part.

Since watching Wir sind die Nacht, I'm now a big fan of Max Riemelt but he does need to work on becoming a different person in his films as I've seen him use the same acting techniques and facial expressions in a few of his films now (e.g. Die Welle).

Overall, it's an average ghost story with one (or two) surprises but nothing new. It's perfect for those looking for German language films and people with a bit of time to kill who like typical ghost stories.

5.8/10

Im an Australian traveling around Europe at the moment and I went with some friends to go an see this movie as a sneak preview. I speak a little bit of German but the movie was very well produced and even though there was little dialog (Therefore I could understand most of it) it still came out as a great movie! I highly recommend going to see it, because I was trying to figure out the movie the whole time and then i didn't see the end coming. A really good movie and I definitely recommend going to see it when it comes out, I'm even going to go and see it a second time when its released. This movie though will make most people, apart from the hardened and soulless people out there, jump. There were many points in which the whole cinema jumped and even one young woman had to leave because she was too frightened. Definitely go and watch this movie, highly recommendable. Kudos to the producers! The amount of swearing involved is minimal, and there's nothing too gory, but i wouldn't recommend it for people under 12 unless accompanied by someone who can 'protect' them.

And guys, take your girlfriends, they'll want you to hold them tight during this one!

It's a dark suspense thriller about two women which were best friends when they were kids and now they meet again, passed all these years. As child they used to spend some holidays in a small isolated island near the mainland, and now they meet again they decide to spend some days there one more time, to remember the old days…Everything goes fine until one of them see a photo where there're both of them and one third little girl she didn't remember… Maria!

It's atmospheric, dark, in a mood of a ghost story, and it has suspense until the end, where there's a nice twist in the plot. The setting and the soundtrack are quite good too in order to create a dark and atmospheric story. I appreciated it mostly because of the ambiance created. I score it 8/10.