It’s hard to know where to begin with this mediocre thriller that stars the late Brittany Murphy as Mary Walsh, a bank manager who’s in the throes of a new relationship with Kevin Peterson (played by Dean Cain).

Kevin is booked in for routine orthopaedic surgery at the hospital so she drives him there, gets him settled in and waits for him in the visitor’s room. The hours tick by and still she sits. After a ludicrous amount of time Mary gets up and asks about him. Kevin who? No-one’s heard of him. Mary tries to find him; he’s not in his room, he hasn’t shown up on computer records or CCTV and the Nurse who admitted him doesn’t even exist. It’s now up to Mary to prove Kevin is not a figment of her imagination. Think Jodie Foster searching for her missing daughter in Flight Plan but without the building tension and sparkling dialogue.    

So begins Mary’s frantic search for Kevin as hospital security and admin staff deny his existence and pour an unnecessary amount of scorn over her attempts. Unsurprisingly it’s not long before Mary’s sanity is questioned and she is duly hauled in for an assessment by Dr Bensley (Peter Bogdanovitch) a Psychiatrist who’s unnaturally slow and lifeless delivery would be enough to send the most stable patient into a spiral of despair.  Both Mary’s sanity and Kevin’s whereabouts are put under the microscope but whether the viewer is now sufficiently bothered to look that closely is another question.  

Detective Franklin (Jay Pickett) is called in to help in the search for Kevin and becomes Mary’s only hope as the hospital becomes increasingly hostile towards her.  Before Mary is dragged off by the men in white coats the pace suddenly changes from snail to hare as Kevin makes contact with Mary out of the blue and she is hit by a car. Cue Mary looking decidedly touch-and-go in her hospital bed. Cue Mary - minutes later – out of bed and running about with the same vigour as before. It is these implausible events that damage the film’s credibility.

Directed by Michael Feifer, who has a few TV films under his belt, Abandoned feels like more of the same with its melodramatic soundtrack, corny dialogue and annoying flashbacks. It’s also hard to care about Kevin or Mary due to their undeveloped characters and back story.  

This is Brittany Murphy’s last film and her earnest performance is just enough to keep Abandoned bobbing at the mediocre water mark rather than dropping to the murky depths of downright awful.