Absolutely brilliant

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Brittany checks her boyfriend into the hospital for routine out patient surgery. After a while he disappears without a trace. He is not in the hospital records. Brittany has a history of psychological disorders and appears to be unsure herself. Little by little Brittany finds clues to convince herself she is not crazy and her boyfriend is real. She runs around the hospital in a frantic search as the staff try to catch her.Brittany Murphy's doll face is in nearly every scene. The acting was good, the plot was so-so as the "is it real?" didn't carry through until the very end as the movie shifts from a suspense-thriller to an action-drama.If you enjoyed "Shutter Island", you might want to check out this movie or vice-versa.

There's nothing much to the plot, which is fairly familiar. Someone we know to be real vanishes under ordinary circumstances and is tracked down by a friend or family member. Nobody remembers ever having seen the person who disappeared. Sometimes the motive for the kidnapping is some secret code ("The Lady Vanishes"), sometimes the victim is involuntarily sequestered because he has some disease ("So Long At The Fair"), sometimes jealousy ("Bunny Lake is Missing"). Here he's simply kidnapped from a hospital for money but it's not revealed until the end. Actually, that's not entirely the end.It was shot in Los Angeles with no stars but it was better than I expected for a couple of reasons. (1) No exploding fireballs. (2) No stupendous car crashes. I suppose that the low budget could account for the absence of these clichés, but one cliché that was missing would have cost nothing to include.Ordinarily when the protagonist has an unusual story to tell, she finds that no one will believe her. She dashes from person to person, agency to agency, desperately trying to get her story out, and everyone she meets shrugs it off as a delusion or some sort of humdrum error in the computer system. When, FINALLY, she does meet a sympathetic listener who is willing to help, she turns to blubber and begins to speak gibberish -- "He seemed so REAL! He was wearing a puce fustian cape and a motley foolscap with bells on it!" Well, I don't know what happened to that scene. The diminutive Brittany Murphy, with her stringy blond tresses, deep-set dark eyes, and wide, pulpy mouth, never once goes to pieces, despite multiple opportunities. She acts in a reasonable but increasingly frustrated manner throughout. Never mind the overplayed villainous roles or the melancholy performance by Peter Bogdanovitch as a helpless psychiatrist.One of the first hospital people she queries is a tall, burly guy with a buzz cut and an unfriendly expression. She describes her missing boy friend -- "A little over six feet, black hair, dark eyes." "I haven't seen anyone of that description," replies the Security Agent. (The description fits 90% of Homo sapiens. Is he blind, or is this Iceland?) The real climax is inexplicable. A detective wanders into someone's house, picks up a book, and reads the entire plot of the movie he now finds himself in. Ten million dollars seems to appear from nowhere.But -- come to think of it -- there's another missing cliché. Murphy is being pursued through the bowels of the hospital by the armed, burly Security Agent. He pauses in a room crowded with large pipes. She steps out and beans him with an iron pipe. He falls to the floor, blood on his head. The terrified girl slowly advances to pick up the pistol lying next to him. This is the point at which the "dead body" should come roaring back to life and grab her by the throat. But no. Another opportunity either overlooked or, very sensibly, skipped deliberately.The heck with it. Two extra points for the two missing clichés. Call me a Franciscan fool.

Brittany Murphy existed in this. Her performance was great and the film isn't a bad film although it has been done too many times to stand out from the crowd. Its very cliché and been done so many times. From the off the film has you gripped and carries you along with enough intrigue to keep you watching. But what is distracting is the state of Brittany Murphy's health. Yes we all know this is her last film but you really need to watch this movie to know why. She is underweight, pale, sunken eyes and really bad lank hair. Why she wasn't in hospital instead of making this movie i will never know. Such a shame as she was really great in spite of her health problems in this film. Some things simply cannot be hidden by make up. RIP Brittany x

this wasn't a bad movie, but Mary is a manager at a bank. i don't think they would have let her hold that position as a manager & keep that position w/that strange greasy (or weird colored), unkempt hair. and they only called her once from work. her friend was supposed to keep an eye on her and call her back. her hair was very distracting throughout the movie. other than that, it was an okay movie.and her boyfriend was only supposed to be an hour in surgery. why didn't she check the room or the outpatient desk to make sure he was OK? and why was her car unlocked in the parking garage? didn't she think someone would steal his laptop, unless she didn't notice.