Plot

A woman has a precognitive vision of her husband's death.

Middle-class couple Linda and Jim Hanson exist in a rut with their two daughters in their comfortable suburban home. One Thursday morning, the local sheriff informs Linda that Jim died in a car accident the day before. When she awakens the next morning, she finds Jim safe and sound at home; the morning after that she awakens to find him dead. She realizes that her days are out of order; her family and friends believe that she's insane.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Thursday. Her two daughters at school, suburban housewife Linda Hanson answers the door: it's the sheriff, informing her that her husband Jim died the previous day in a car accident. She picks up her children and tells them, her mother comes, and Linda makes it through the day. When she awakens on day 2, it's not Friday, it's the previous Monday. Jim is in the kitchen having breakfast. Linda thinks Thursday has been a nightmare, but the next morning when she wakes, it's Saturday after his death. And so forth for seven days - Linda goes between before and after. She pieces things together, realizing her marriage was failing. Can she save it? And can she save Jim? Wednesday approaches.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

The Hansons--Jim and Linda and their adolescent daughters Bridgette and Megan--are a loving family. Immediately after Linda picks up a cryptic and incomplete telephone message from Jim, she receives a visit from a sheriff who informs her that Jim was killed in a car accident the previous day while on a business trip. Devastated, Linda calls her mother Joanne for support, and Joanne stays with Linda and the girls for the night. When Linda awakens the next morning, she finds her mother gone with no evidence that she had been ever been there. Later that day she runs into the sheriff, who seems to have no recollection of ever meeting her, let alone delivering bad news to her recently. Most importantly, she discovers that Jim is still alive and well with no signs of having been in any kind of accident. But she also experiences things that day that are totally inexplicable to her. She turns to various sources of professional help. For the next few days she awakens to find Jim dead on some and alive on others. Eventually she realizes that she's living the week out of order: she has no recollection of things that have happened earlier in the week that she has yet to experience, but she knows things that have happened later in the week that she has already lived. That knowledge of the future she finds is a powerful tool in being able to change the events earlier in the week, and which may change the course not only of the car accident but of what she truly comes to realize was their disintegrating marriage as the last day of the week which she will live being the fateful day Jim is supposed to die.—Huggo

Devastated upon receiving the news that her husband has been killed in a tragic car accident, a woman wakes up to find him still very much alive as she slips into a confusing world where the past and the future become increasingly difficult to distinguish. Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) was an average housewife with a loving family, but when a policeman comes with news that her husband Jim (Julian McMahon) was involved in a fatal car accident, Linda's world slowly begins to unravel. While her grief is at first overwhelming, Linda assumes that the whole thing was nothing more than a vivid dream when she wakes to find her family still very much intact. With each passing day, however, Linda's reality shifts and her circumstances grow increasingly surreal; one day Jim is dead and the next he is right there by her side. As her investigation leaves her convinced that her husband's death wasn't a dream and that her picture-perfect life may not have been quite as flawless as she thought, Linda embarks on a mind-bending journey to prevent her grim premonition from becoming a reality. Now, in order to save the man she loves, Linda will have to piece together a perplexing mystery that seems to span two separate planes of reality.

Jim (Julian McMahon) and Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) are married with two daughters, Megan (Shyann McClure) and Bridgette (Courtney Taylor Burness), but their relationship is faltering. Jim is away on a business trip (Linda has dropped the kids to school and put stickers on the glass doors to make them visible) and Linda has just listened to a phone message from him when Sheriff Reilly (Marc Macaulay) knocks on the door and informs her that Jim died in a car accident the previous day. Linda's mother Joanne (Kate Nelligan) arrives to help the family, and Linda falls asleep on the living-room couch. The next morning, she wakes up in bed and goes downstairs to find Jim drinking coffee and watching TV. While on the road, Linda is pulled over by Sheriff Reilly after a close shave with a reckless driver, who doesn't recognize her. Linda finds a dead crow in her front yard and the glass doors have no stickers on them.

The next day, Jim is again dead, and Bridgette has scars on her face. Linda awakens next to an empty bottle of lithium pills prescribed by Dr. Norman Roth (Peter Stormare). At Jim's burial, Linda notices a strange woman mourning at a distance, who flees when Linda approaches her. Linda finds Dr. Roth's phone number in the garbage, but his voice-mail message states that the office is only open on weekdays. Roth later subdues her with two assistants and Sheriff Reilly and commits her to a mental-health facility. Roth confides in Reilly that Linda told him Jim was dead the day before the accident, suggesting the likelihood she murdered him and scarred Bridgette's face.

The next day Linda awakens in bed and finds Jim in the shower. After dropping the girls off at school, she goes home and searches for the lithium bottle, but doesn't find it. She gets the address for Dr. Roth from the phone book and visits his office. He doesn't recognize her, and she tells him about the premonitions she's been having. He suggests she is daydreaming and maybe she wants her husband dead. He prescribes lithium and she leaves. Linda visits Jim at his office and meets the stranger from the funeral, who introduces herself as Claire Francis (Amber Valletta). Linda sees the way Jim interacts with Claire and realizes Jim seems to like her too much. Back at the house, Linda lets the lithium tablets go into the sink.

Despite Linda's warning, Bridgette runs through a glass door, cutting her face and hands in the process. She takes her to the emergency room. Jim arrives and learns what happened. Bridgette returns home stitched up, and Jim complains to Linda didn't put stickers on the glass door for safety. Although Linda says she did. Linda throws Dr. Roth's number into the garbage. Suddenly, she realizes her days are unfolding out of order. She creates a calendar of events from what she remembers, and records Tuesday as the current day. Before Jim goes to bed she begs him not to go on the business trip. She tells him, "If tomorrow is Wednesday, please, wake me up before you leave. Promise me." He does.

Linda wakes up and sees that it's now Friday morning and her mom is there. She updates the calendar she had made. She goes to see Claire who is visibly upset and tells Linda Jim was going to cheat on her. Linda confides in her friend about what happened with Jim and Claire, and suggests he didn't do it, but it would be very damaging if he had. She visits their safe deposit box at the bank and finds the insurance policy. The agent lets her know the finances should be in order, and he informs Linda that Jim came in two days earlier and tripled his insurance benefits. She visits their priest, then visits the funeral home, telling the person she already knows who she is. Linda returns home to her mother and daughters. She tells her she made funeral arrangements already for Saturday. Linda asks her mom if she "lets" Jim die, is it the same as killing him? Her mother replies "Jim is already dead".

Next day, Linda awakens and suggests Jim spend some time with the girls. Linda goes to the church and visits with their priest (Jude Ciccolella). He says it's been a long time since he saw her. She tells him she is scared. The priest talks about other cases where people in history have had such premonitions. He explains she needs to have faith and fight for it. Linda drives out to mile marker 220 where Jim's accident was to see what may have happened. Jim and the girls return home to Linda. After dinner the girls go to say goodnight to their dad and Linda insists, he tells them he loves them. Linda pleads with Jim outside in the rain about their relationship and tells him they're running out of time. Lightning strikes a power line and kills the crow which she found dead a different day. Later that night, she tells him she had a dream which he was going to die. He says it was only a dream.

Linda wakes up in her bed on Wednesday and reads a note from Jim saying he has taken the kids to school, and he will be back tomorrow. She searches for Jim and calls him but gets voicemail. She goes out to look for him. Jim is seen at the bank with the insurance agent. Linda shows up to the school and sees her kids are there already. Jim calls Claire who is at the hotel where they planned to meet, and he tells her he can't go forward seeing her. Next, he calls the house and leaves the message from the beginning of the film. As Jim nears the site of the accident, Linda reaches him by cell phone and the two have a reconciliation after she tells him she knows about Claire. Linda tells Jim to turn the car around to avert the accident. This instead causes the accident with a fuel tanker truck, as Jim's car stalls in the middle of the road when performing the turn. Both vehicles explode. The film's final scene is set a few months later. Linda recalls the priest's words about faith. Linda is pregnant.