Quite a let-down overall, this vaguely supernatural thriller is
redeemed in part by the delicacy and commitment of Blanchett’s
performance. She plays a clairvoyant in a small Southern town who keeps
seeing fragments of the truth behind the disappearance of a local
strumpet (Holmes, rather convincing in her few scenes). A heavy, hammy
supporting cast – including a brutish but useless Reeves – line up as
suspects, but its mysteries just aren’t mysterious, and its shocks
much less shocking than anything in, say, Stir Of Echoes. Child abuse
and wife-beating over-egg an already stodgy pudding of a screenplay by
Billy Bob Thornton.
