"Reminiscence" Review: A Memory of Films Done Better

Platform: HBOMax, In Theaters

Release Date: August 20, 2021

One of the co-creators of “Westworld,” Lisa Joy, both writes and directs her feature debut in this sci-fi crime noir that carries shades of films like “Blade Runner” and “Inception”. Set in a future Miami that has been drowned by the rising tides of climate change, the city lives a life of sleeping during a daytime that proves too hot and, instead, relishes in the nocturnal. With a bleak present and future, the world looks to the past for optimism, enter private eye Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) and his partner Watts (Thandiwe Newton). Through the technology of their memory machine, Nick is able to navigate through one's memories and occasionally help supply the DA with information when needed, but the bulk of their business comes from the everyday client wanting to relive their glory days. One such client, Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), enters Nick's life and they spend a few months with each other before she vanishes without a warning. Plagued with obsession, Nick refuses to let her disappearance go and dives into his own memories of her, as well as the memories of others, to retrace the steps of a woman he thought he knew. Upon the discovery of a larger conspiracy, what starts as a personal journey of love lost becomes a story with implications of the classism and corruption of the sinking city.

The movie had a high-level concept and the trailer built a good level of anticipation, but the story was pretty mundane and could not come close to its conceptual potential. For a mystery set around a relationship, there was not much done to build a level of investement in Nick and Mae that warranted a longing for the mystery to be solved. Conceptually, it makes sense for their relationship to feel like a one-trick pony since its all seen from Nick's perspective, but in terms of storytelling, it kept it very shallow. The details of the story, while starting out feeling as though there could be fun twists and surprises, are delivered pretty straightforward and without much shock at all. The story plays with the past and with memories a lot, so much that it becomes a detriment, and most of the details we need to figure out Mae's fate are tied into past scenes of the movie that were presented as background noise. There are a few themes that are spliced throughout the story, such as classism, corruption of wealth, infidelity, nostalgia, and much more, but none carried enough weight alone to feel impactful.

This movie booked a killer cast, with Hugh Jackman taking the lead and, as one of my favorite actors, I was really pumped to see him take on another obsessive character (“The Prestige” and “Prisoners”). Unfortunately, I never felt him hit his stride with the character and, for such a dark asthetic of a movie, I think Nick's character needed to have more of an edge to him. Rather, he just chased memories around like a lovesick puppy. Thandiwe Newton, coming over from Joy's “Westworld,” is a great actress who is given very little to do and feels wasted as a somewhat supportive, supporting character. I also really like Rebecca Ferguson who gave a really favorably performance, but because her story was mostly told in memory snippets, the character never had a chance to build momentum. Honestly, I thought that Daniel Wu's portrayal of criminal kingpin Saint Joe brought the most enthusiasm and personality of any character in the movie and that was a pretty minor role.

Even with a weakly told story, there were some really great visuals throughout the movie. A lot of shots found bright highlights in the background of a muted foreground, which was common considering the darkly neutral environment. I think this movie tried to capture this poetic nature of nostalgia and memory, both in theme and in images. Not only did the visual representation of memory playback have a light, visually appealing elegance to it, but some of the cinematography seems to have extra flair added to be awe-inspiring. For example, the entire sequence in the building with the piano as Nick fights Cyrus Booth (Cliff Curtis) and they end up underwater, the shot leaves such a focus on the heaven-like light shining through the hole. There is also the added impact of having Nick's memories of his love with Mae including more sunlight than the rest of the movie and brighter colors and it seems obvious that the color psychology was real in this film.

In the film, Nick noted to Mae that there is “No such thing as a happy ending. All endings are sad. Especially if the story was happy”. This proves to be the biggest spoiler for the film, with Nick not actually finding the happy ending he wanted with Mae and having to live with the story that came before. Unfortunately, this saying would not prove true about the film itself, as it could not find a smooth way of blending the noir crime thriller aspect well into its interesting sci-fi concept. Rather than feel innovative or even like an homage to similar films before it, it took too little influence from its predecessors and failed to build a story that felt worthy of its high level talent and concept.

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RATING: 🧠 🧠. 5 / 5

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