Forgotten Island

Forgotten Island is playing in theaters at the time of writing. Rated PG. Common Sense says 8+

In Forgotten Island, two Filipino best friends, Jo and Raissa, are magically transported to a mythical world of Nakali. The final sequence is really entertaining and really moving. In it, one girl is having every memory of the other girl erased from her mind. Her friend dives into each dream, clutching at anyone and anything she can like a frenzied Black Friday shopper filling their cart with every half priced item they can find in order to stop it from happening. But she can’t. It all slips through her trembling fingers like sand. The memory evaporates, and she’s flung into the next one. 

The sequence had two effects on me. One, I didn’t see these feels coming, so it’s stayed stuck in my brain ever since I saw it. Second, it inspired me to calculate how many sticky notes it would take to make one metric ton of them (I’ll give you the answer later). 

Here’s why this sequence is so incredible. 

For one, it’s very similar to another all-time cinematic scene: the mind-swipe scene from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In that film, Clementine has broken Joel’s heart, so he decides to scrub every single memory of her from his brain. Director Michel Gondry uses practical effects like forced perspective, mirrors, and sprinting grips scurrying behind cameras to move props. The fantastical premise—specific memory erasure—feels real because everything we’re seeing is actually happening. It’s extremely emotional, and we carry that emotion with us into this film.

Forgotten Island’s scene also hits hard because the friendship between the two girls runs so deep. Raissa is a brain and a planner, a girl who wields calculus and physics like a switchblade. Jo, on the other hand, actually wields a switchblade. At school. She's not big on thinking things through or worrying about consequences. These opposite souls just decide one day to be best friends because of the one thing they do have in common: they’re both outsiders and know what it feels like to be alone and left out.  As the movie rolls on, we live out the soon-to-be-erased memories with them. It’s hard not to get teary when you feel like you were there, as if these were your memories too.

Their friendship is tested once they graduate high school. Raissa is set to leave the island and go to college in California. Jo is working at the “best chicken shop in the Philippines” and not worrying about what comes next. On their last night together, they discover a portal that whisks them away to Nakali. 

Nikali is a rollicking, fun trip. It’s soaked in vibrant, startling colors. The landscape is wild and inventive. The girls meet, in no particular order: a dream demon, a dog boy, a demon baby, a Mer-Man, and a tribe of deadly, adorable marshmallow warriors.  When filmmakers place this much care and detail into the creation of a fictional world, that world feels real no matter how fantastical it may be. Even if it’s a place where memories can be stolen.

Real connections. Real friendship. Real worlds. That’s fertile soil for emotional charge to grow. The filmmakers take full advantage of all of it for the ending, thank goodness.

If Eternal Sunshine’s memory-wipe segment moves us (partly) because of its practical effects, Forgotten Island uses the full powers of its genre to move us. Anything can happen in animation. The narrative is only limited by the storyteller’s imagination. We believe what we’re watching as we watch the impossible happen, the same way we do in our dreams. 

The sequence even uses a type of dream logic: taking things that cannot possibly hurt you and turning them into deadly menaces. Every memory in the sequence uses that idea, and my favorite is when an avalanche of sticky notes threatens to smother one of the girls (for the record, it would take 1,164,039 sticky notes to make a metric ton). 

And somewhere during that wild ride, the movie hits us with its theme. Losing our memories—the good ones and the bad ones—isn’t like taking paintings off the wall. They’re not decoration. They’re the entire house. 

I found myself running through the rolodex of my core memories as I watched one friend desperately fight for the other. I thought of who I’d be if my memories vanished. I found myself grateful for all the good memories, and even most of the bad ones.

The scene is a satisfying dovetail of animated imagination, friendship, and entertainment that you won’t soon forget. It transforms a wildly fun movie into a piece of art that has something valuable to say.