There are a lot of movies with this basic plot: "The person you claim is missing, no one else remembers ever having seen. Are you sure he/she isn't a figment of your imagination?" Other examples: So Long at the Fair (Joan Collins), Bunny Lake is Missing (Carol Lynley), And No One Could Save Her (Lee Remick), Flight Plan (Jodie Foster), Dangerous Crossing (Jeanne Crain). Funny, the person presumed crazy is always a woman. The problem with this one is that the star, Brittany Murphy is so over made up, and inappropriately made up, we half expect that the movie will pull the fast one on us and tell us at the end that she indeed always has been crazy and her missing boyfriend never really did exist. If the purple eye shadow and the clown-like ring of lipstick way over extending the boundary of her actual lips (oh, and she's supposed to be a bank manager!) wasn't a clue, maybe we should have picked up on it from the way her hair gets more ever more disheveled as her situation grows ever more dire and her sanity less certain. On the same basis, her dark roots become ever more apparent, strangely so, as the film takes place over the course of a single afternoon. The director seems to have aided her performance in the latter part of the film, in which she is nearing despair, by filming as her Xanax was kicking in. Even so, her acting always remains better than Dean Cain's, but then, so would a brick's. Sadly, this (once) promising actress passed away, mysteriously, shortly after her work in this direct-to-video production. Were those near her missing the signs?
Review of Abandoned
