Publication Date: 01-26-2026

Unforgettable (2017) review

Dir. Denise Di Novi

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★

I feel I have seen and reviewed far more Fatal Attraction-esque, love-triangle, crazy-ex drama/thrillers than any person ever should. Between Swimfan, Obsessed, The Perfect Guy, When the Bough Breaks, and now Unforgettable, I’ve decided to conduct this review a little differently in order not to evoke monotony on my loyal readers weary of me venturing out into this genre of film yet again.

I’ve comprised a list of musings about Unforgettable that stemmed from nearly illegible notes I took on a napkin at the movie theater. I’ve reworked them a tad so that the first word of my sentences start with a letter of the film’s title. That’s my effort to at least make this reading experience more memorable than this film.

U – Unusually serious take on a premise that should be unapologetically trashy, especially when we see Rosario Dawson commit to her role as if she’s pining for Oscar consideration.

N – Nauseatingly obvious score that only knows how to overplay the drama in a film that was written already overplaying the drama.

F – Females be crazy, as the saying goes, but so do those that feel, even deep down, that this sort of flamboyant cattiness and deception is ever-so-common amongst women in an internally misogynistic way.

O – Oh, I almost forgot I have a plot to talk about – a manipulative and violent woman (Katherine Heigl) comes back into her ex-husband’s (Geoff Stults) life when he brings home a new girlfriend (Rosario Dawson) who works in social media but doesn’t even have a Facebook.

R – Ridiculous to a fault, and lacks the pulp of When the Bough Breaks and the absurdity of some moments in The Perfect Guy to save itself from just being labeled as such.

G – Geoff Stults as the male character here is an interesting pick. I’d like to think the film is a spiritual sequel following his character in I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, where him and three buddies were celebrating his bachelor party before his marriage to a mildly domineering woman.

E – Every time the actors – even the gifted Dawson – are tasked with going a bit above the line of calm and collective, they embellish emotions and create a scene soapier than a washing machine.

T – “Time to change the channel,” I thought while watching Unforgettable, when Dawson’s stalker ex-boyfriend reappeared and moved with the life of a zombie, until I made the stunning realization I was indeed in a theater, where I forfeited such a luxury.

T – Tables turn in the third act, but they were so aggressively illustrated that it was as if screenwriters Christina Hodson and David Leslie Johnson forgot they should’ve implemented a twist of some sort.

A – About the time I thought Katherine Heigl was impressing me as an actress here, I realized even she couldn’t make for a convincing character when using her outside voice.

B – Bold move trying to implement ideas of gaslighting, but unlike The Girl on the Train, Unforgettable can’t commit to saying or showing anything noteworthy about such a form of abuse.

L – Leave it to one of Charlie’s Angels to even hint at the possibility of a sequel.

E – Extremely misleading title.

NOTE: My video review of Unforgettable:

Starring: Rosario Dawson, Katherine Heigl, Geoff Stults, and Cheryl Ladd. Directed by: Denise Di Novi.