The crazy, jealous ex. The female protagonist with a troubled past. The good guy that the girls are pining over even though he has no personality or originality. The quirky best friend who provides comic relief and good advice. A cheesily dramatic climax. I could be describing any one of the dozens of cheap Lifetime-esque psycho-sexual thrillers that Hollywood keeps shamefully producing. Do I even need to summarize the plot?

Tessa Connover (Katherine Heigl) is a stone-cold divorcee glaring with icy longing at her ex-husband, David, (Geoff Stults) and his new fiancee, Julia Banks (Rosario Dawson), as they build their lives around the shards of Tessa’s jealousy and grief over her broken family. Tessa and David have a daughter together, an extra element that adds the only bit of complexity that this story has. Nothing about this film is particularly original or unexpected — this movie knows exactly what kind of cheap thriller it is and goes for it with comical abandon. It’s suspenseful, dramatic and always boiling toward a violent and exciting climax that ends in miraculous police sirens and flashing red and blue lights.

Dawson is almost objectively likable and is inherently charismatic, so audiences will of course be rooting for her. That being said, Heigl’s Tessa steals the show here. She literally doesn’t have a hair out of place (as proven by the multiple scenes of her brushing her hair while staring absently into the mirror), although her vulnerability and imperfection seeps through the cracks. Heigl has been typecast as the uptight blonde (think Knocked Up, 27 Dresses, The Ugly Truth…), and she pushes that stereotype to the max here — often seen sitting at home with a giant glass of wine and villainously surfing “backgroundprobe.com,” Heigl encapsulates every other ice-cold antagonist, ever.

Nevertheless, I am still not afraid of Tessa. This is not Heigl’s fault. Heigl was not given enough material to make her character all that compelling, and it’s unfortunate that the rom-com actress’ fantastic thriller acting will be ignored due to the movie’s predictable lines and plot. This is the kind of movie where everyone is always explaining themselves to each other and explaining each other to each other.

The title “Unforgettable” has nothing to do with this movie, especially because the film is as forgettable as the dozens of cheap thrillers exactly like it. The numbingly familiar formula demands that one character be crazy and the other be too stupid to realize it; although this is a notably female-centered movie, none of the women’s roles are all that empowering. There’s a pretty graphic sex scene smack-dab in the middle of the film that makes this movie off-limits to children (although the multiple stabbings and Heigl’s murderous glares should keep anyone under 17 away, anyway).

     Don’t waste your money when there’s probably a movie exactly like it playing on Lifetime right now. You will gain nothing from this movie that you can’t get from the trailer.