The once-promising Michael Polish of the once-promising Polish Brothers (“North Fork”) directed his wife, Kate Bosworth, in “Amnesiac.” And the only memorable thing about this middling thriller is its resemblance to its betters, from “Misery” to “Before I Go to Sleep.”
The pretty but almost-always monotonous Bosworth stars as a woman caring for a man who has just come out of a coma.
That’s what we call her, “Woman.” And him (Wes Bentley)? “Man.”
There was a car accident, and judging from the car, it happened in the pre-seatbelt ’60s. A daughter (Olivia Rose Keegan) was involved. Was she killed?
The man awakens in a hospital bed in what looks like a darkened, empty ballroom. And there’s this woman standing over him. Who is she?
“I’m your wife, and I’m gonna make you all better!”
He’s got “temporary memory loss,” she tells him. Not that he remembers that. Or the memories she flings at him, “kissing me by the creek. You don’t remember?”
“I want to.”
Hey, she’s Kate Bosworth. We get it. Who wouldn’t want to remember that?
There are flickers of old home movies, and clues litter the setting and his mind. Is she who she says she is, or is this something more sinister? Hint, she keeps sedating him. Another hint, check out that studio-provided still photo. There’s little mystery to the spoiler alerts here.
The look is hazy, a film shot in the washed-out colors and gauzy light of eight millimeter filmed home movies. But “Amnesiac” takes a good 30 minutes to get past a dull, quiet and forlorn prologue to set us up for what it might deliver, but pretty much doesn’t. Bentley has morphed into a version of Jake Gyllenhaal who doesn’t elicit excitement or empathy. He works a lot in this corner of no-budget filmdom, and generally the films don’t do him any favors, or vice versa. Bosworth doesn’t have far to go in dialing down the emotions for this character, and that’s been the story of her career, for the most part. Where’s that supporting role on a cable series that she might be suited for?
Most people would give up on it if they stumbled across it on Netflix, and the payoff certainly justifies that abandonment. If you’ve read this far, you probably didn’t, and more’s the pity.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence

Cast: Kate Bosworth, Wes Bentley, Olivia Rose Keegan, Shashawnee Hall
Credits: Directed by Michael Polish, script by Amy Kolquist, Mike Le. An XLRator Media release.

Running time: 1:30