Just because an idea works on paper doesn’t mean it’ll automatically work in practice. More so than any film recently, “Reminiscence” is the perfect example of that fallacy. It takes an idea that has lots of potential and seems like a fascinating idea on paper and turns it into a poorly directed, predictable slog, trapping some otherwise fine performances underneath a remarkably boring plot.
Hugh Jackman (“Logan,” “The Prestige”) stars as Nick Bannister, a man living in the not-too-distant future who helps people relive their old memories to forget about the rapidly debilitating present world. He runs his shop alongside his friend Emily, played by Thandiwe Newton (“Westworld (2016),” “Crash”), and after meeting and forming a relationship with Mae, played by Rebecca Ferguson (“The White Queen,” “Doctor Sleep”), he becomes obsessed with trying to figure out what happened to her after she disappears from his life.
The biggest and most glaring issue with the film is that it simply isn’t interesting. It posits a lot of interesting ideas; a new drug called Baca, a half-flooded world, the sun has become so hot that people have become nocturnal, reliving one’s memories, but simply displays them as blandly as possible. Baca, this new drug, is just a small pill that looks like a berry, and we’re never even shown what kind of effects it has on people. The flooded world and newly nocturnal people are just excuses to shoot predominately at night. The film even plays fast and lose with the logic of these concepts, as there are plenty of scenes that take place in open sunlight with seemingly no consequences.
Most disappointingly, writer/director Lisa Joy (“Westworld (2016),” “Pushing Daisies”), making her directorial debut, takes the film’s most interesting concept, reliving one’s memories, and directs it in the blandest and most painfully boring way possible. While we do “go inside” these memories, its just regularly shot footage. Otherwise, it results in us watching a movie about people watching things. Even with this central concept, the logic is all over the place. Sometimes the footage is only first person, and sometimes it’s a full replica of events with 360 degrees of settings.
If there’s anything good to be said about the film, Jackman and the rest of the cast perform decently. Newton seems to be the only cast member who understands the type of hard-boiled noir film she’s in; she delivers her lines between swigs of whisky and seems to have one eyebrow permentantly cocked as she’s along for the self-destructive ride of Jackman’s Nick. The rest of the cast play either too serious: Jackman and Fergusson, or too silly: a weirdly cast Daniel Wu (“Into the Badlands,” “That Demon Within”) as Saint Joe.
The musical score from Ramin Djawadi (“Iron Man,” “Pacific Rim”) is fine and the cinematography is another bright spot, shot well by Paul Cameron (“Collateral,” “Total Recall (2012)”). It’s a very pretty film that looks and sounds good anytime an actor isn’t speaking. The moment anyone opens their mouths, the dialogue causes any viewer paying attention to suffer from tonal whiplash. Its utterly bizarre watching a film drenched in not-to-distant sci-fi technology and an overtly serious color pallet speak dialogue that is the stereotypical equivalent of a thick Brooklyn accent spouting “The dame walked into my office with legs from here to there, see?”
“Reminiscence” is simply not good. Taken at face value and its certainly got some things going for it. Yet, some decent acting and technical aspects can’t save a film that is just so incredibly boring to watch. It’s hard to say if a flashier version of this film would be any good, but it just feels like a story better suited to novelization. Because like the memories within the film, it’s just boring to watch. 1/5
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