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A Friendly Man is the main antagonist of the 2004 Joseph Rueben film The Forgotten. He is an alien scientist who runs a number of strange, abstract experiments on humans, including measuring and breaking the love between parents and children. As his species seems to be secretly in control of Earth, A Friendly Man has control over agents of human governments, such as NSA personnel. Externally, his true form appears mostly human, with the exception of a slightly enlarged cranium and all-black eyes that appear sunken into his head, like skeletal eye sockets. However, he is able to shapeshift to take on a perfectly human-like appearance. Internally, his body appears to be comprised of some sort of metallic liquid, which smokes if his skin is pierced. Additionally, he can quickly regenerate from injuries, appears to feel no pain, can easily overpower adult humans, and is capable of creating powerful sonic shockwaves by yelling. Most notably, A Friendly Man can erase years worth of memories from humans, including the memories of one's children, by latching on to a "source memory."
He was portrayed by Linus Roache.
Biography[]
A Friendly Man in human form
For an unknown period of time, A Friendly Man's species controlled Earth from the shadows, conscripting world governments and running experiments on the human population, threatening to destroy the world if their experiments were interfered with. A Friendly Man decided to run an experiment concerning measuring and breaking parental bonds, achieving this by staging a disaster where a plane carrying several children on a field trip crashed, when in reality, the children were taken to an alien facility. For 14 months, the alien presumably observed and measured the grief of the parents of the children, who thought they were dead, as it was a representation of how strong their bonds were. After that period, the alien commenced the second phase, where he attempted to break parental bonds by erasing the memories of the children from their parents and anyone who knew them, manipulating human agents to keep up the ruse by removing or covering up as much physical evidence as they could, presumably figuring that the bonds could not overcome the alien abilities. However, one of the parents, a woman named Telly Paretta, managed to keep her memories, her love for her son overcoming the manipulation. A Friendly Man opted to make Telly believe she was insane, making Dr. Munce, her OB/GYN, tell her that her memories of her son, Sam, were the result of a miscarriage. Telly refused to believe it, managing to reawaken the memories of a man named Ash, whose memories of his lost daughter were also erased by A Friendly Man.
Seeing that Telly was threatening the outcome of the experiment, which would result in him being punished, A Friendly Man sent NSA agents after Telly and Ash, although the pair escaped from the agents. With that, A Friendly Man erased the memories of Telly from her husband, so that she could not find refuge with him, and personally stalked the two. When the two acquired a car to get out of the city, he blocked their path, only to get run over. However, he stood up immediately afterwards, with no visible injuries, although the humans got away. Later, when Telly and Ash captured an NSA agent, A Friendly Man had the agent abducted into the sky, presumably to a hidden alien ship, before he could give away any information. When Telly and Ash managed to find the now-abandoned house of the CEO of Quest Airlines, the front airline A Friendly Man used to capture the children, A Friendly Man arrived at the house to intercept them, being seen by a policewoman named Anne Pope, who had been contacted by Telly and also went to the house. Anne, not recognizing A Friendly Man, ordered him to stop, but he ignored her, and when she shot him in the legs, he did not even flinch, with the wounds quickly sealing up. A Friendly Man entered the house, and had Anne abducted before she could offer her help to Telly and Ash.
Telly and Ash managed to escape the alien again and get back to the city, meeting in a high floor of an apartment, only to be directly confronted by him. Ash decided to attack him, but A Friendly Man quickly overpowered him and threw himself out the window with Ash, allowing Ash to be abducted out of the air while A Friendly Man vanished, leaving Telly on her own. She eventually visited Dr. Munce again, who decided the experiments had gone far enough, taking Telly to an abandoned airport to confront the aliens. The aliens sent their representative, A Friendly Man, to meet with them, where A Friendly Man explained the purpose of the experiment to Telly, and that failure was unacceptable. When Telly refused to forget Sam, A Friendly Man yelled at her to forget, revealing his true form while shattering glass across the hanger, blowing Telly back with the shockwave. Reverting to his human form, A Friendly Man took Telly by the neck and demanded to see when her love for Sam began, latching on to the memory of Sam's birth and erasing it, seemingly erasing the memory of Sam at last. However, when he dropped her and turned to leave, Telly remembered the true start of her love for Sam: when she was pregnant, overriding A Friendly Man's abilities and restoring her memories. Hearing her stand up and declare that she remembered Sam, A Friendly Man tried to ask his superiors for more time, but the experiment was deemed over and a failure, and A Friendly Man was promptly abducted by the other aliens. With the experiment over, Sam and all the missing children were returned, along with other abducted humans, with their memories altered to forget the entire ordeal.