Directed By Lisa Joy

Starring – Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandie Newton

The Plot – Nick Bannister (Jackman), a private investigator of the mind, navigates the alluring world of the past when his life is changed by new client Mae (Ferguson). A simple case becomes an obsession after she disappears and he fights to learn the truth about her.

Rated PG-13 for strong violence, drug material throughout, sexual content and some strong adult language

Reminiscence – Official Trailer – YouTube

POSITIVES

– Scope and scale. For her first feature length film, Joy does a remarkable job as her compositions drift over the Miami of the future in ways that visually tell as much about its history as the overtly deliberate lines of exposition narrating it. The surmising water levels themselves point to a post apocalyptic enveloping with little in the way of hope or circumstantial optimism in the minds of its occupants, and the three-dimensional set designs and luminous lighting schemes exude a unique perspective from the usual vibrancy of South Beach continuity, granting a weathered look to the aqua and marine colors that we typically associate with this distinct geographic location. Because of such, Joy’s directorial debut is one that emits enough style to counterbalance the movie’s overwhelming substance, giving the intimacies of its crime noir drama a bigger than life enveloping when seen through a world-building full of stakes and various lifestyles fleshed out in the integrity of its world.

– Intriguing procedural. There were hints in the trailers to this movie being an homage to the crime noirs of the 40’s and 50’s, but what’s most appealing of its use here is its subtlety in the way that doesn’t leave the production feeling dated, all the while fleshing out a hybrid between ages that feels uniquely fresh towards its storytelling. As expected, the familiarities are there, mainly in the overhead narration read by Jackman, as well as a scintillating musical score from Joy’s Westworld teammate, Ramin Djawadi, that combines enough electric guitar and periodic synth to score this as something other-worldly when compared to the police procedurals of contemporary times. But what’s most rewarding here is the detective work itself, which feels cerebral enough to attain ingenuity in the balance of its time-traveling gimmick, all the while feeling close enough in technology to keep this from feeling like an irresponsibly fantastical concept. It leaves “Reminiscence” feeling unlike any other movie in today’s crime genre landscape, and one fully in love with the elements of its production that it fleshes out accordingly in hooking the audience immediately.

– Three-dimensional characterization. As a screenwriter, Joy invests enough time and experience to the history of these characters to succeed in attaining the lived-in qualities of their pasts, long before the film, all the while conjuring up no shortage of empathy to invest into each of their dynamics. The obvious heights are with Jackman’s Nick, a protagonist who combines enough longing and vulnerability to flesh out his humanity, but one who shouldn’t be taken simultaneously as weak because of such. But what’s most surprising is the depth illustrated to Newton’s Watts and Ferguson’s Mae that prescribes to a versatility that is anything but conventional with their perspectives. It allows Jackman the freedom and courtesy of not bearing the heavy load of carrying the captivity of the narrative on his own, and gives us many diverse variations with a longing for the past that condemns each of them as damned souls living in a world that forces each of them to roll with the sins of those in charge.

– Perfect timing. This isn’t in regards to the run time, which is fine enough at just under two hours, but rather the framing of the movie’s release, which bares a connection to the plot that is too convenient not to mention. Being that this is a film where people are obsessed with their past nostalgia’s, it resonates accordingly in an age where not only are we obsessed with cultural and stylistic nostalgia in our fashion and productions, but also with living in a COVID-riddled world where our best days constantly feel behind us. This gives an unintentionally adverse effect to everything that we’re witnessing transpire on-screen, and really allows the ingredients of its sociological climate to cook in ways that feel easily attainable in a world like ours where nothing feels out of the ordinary when compared to everything we’ve endured in the last 18 months. It’s a gimmick that feels intriguing to anyone constantly looking to the past for comfort and guidance, and serves as the rare science fiction narrative that could possibly appeal to audiences of all varieties.

– Exceptional ensemble. Jackman is remarkable again, but that’s certainly nothing new. This time as Nick Bannister, Hugh bears a disheveled exterior with a sternly professional interior that eventually dissolves, as the story shifts to themes of love, obsession and deceit the further we dive in, capturing infatuation with a level of distraction that leaves the other aspects and relationships in his life suffering with his allowance of time spent away from those elements of comfort and familiarity. Adding to Jackman is the spectacularly seductive Rebecca Ferguson, whose sultry essence and confident demeanor make her one of the more dangerous characters that Jackman comes into contact with, and so much so that it pulls him in head first to a blossoming romance that permeates no shortage of palpable chemistry between the two. Thandie Newton also gives her best work in years as Watts, the best friend and business partner of Bannister, sifting through a barrage of bullets and suppressed feelings and urges that often affords her to being the night in shining armor to Jackman’s damsel in distress.

– Compelling action. While not a constant or dependable factor in the cerebral consistency of its storytelling, the few action sequences and physical conflicts scattered throughout offered an enticing subversion from the story, and one that elevated the stakes and vulnerability in a series of shifting set pieces. Roof top pursuits involving speed and various long jumps, a submerged martini bar, and a gang hideout involving eels are just some of the ingenuity afforded to scenes of urgency, speaking volumes to the military backgrounds of both Nick and Watts that prove the inclusion to be more than just a convenient means to get them out of trouble in the heat of battle. Joy has definitely learned a thing or two from her days on television productions like “Westworld” and “Burn Notice”, but her expanse in budget here proves her capabilities up to the task of a big budget blockbuster, all the while enamoring us with tense sequences of conflict that captivate audiences accordingly.

NEGATIVES

– Derivatively bare. With a story centering around obsession, it is Joy and productions’ obsession with Christopher Nolan movies that is most apparent in the familiarity of the visuals, as well as the beats of the narrative, which reside a little too closely to “Inception” for my taste. You have a story pertaining to mental time travel, a tragic love story in the center, an old song used for memory recall, and even a tortured relationship between a rich man and his son at the center of the movie’s conflict. At some point in the similarities, you have to stop thinking it’s just another coincidence to Hollywood’s derivative nature of filmmaking, and eventually declare it the pastiche puddle that it so shamelessly soaks up along the way. If both properties weren’t owned by Warner Bros. then I’d think a lawsuit was just around the corner, but since that isn’t happening I will say that “Inception” is the far better film between the two, if even just for the reason that it did it first, and didn’t require intellectual theft off-screen to influence its appeal.

– Machinery mishaps. If you can get over some of the more implausible constructs with the design of the machine itself, like how sparse details in memories fade with each passing minute, yet are captured with perfect authenticity in both the setting and the wardrobe, then you certainly can’t overlook the framing of the memory itself in the machine, especially since it comes from the perspective of the people that the memory is plucked from. Because of this, wouldn’t everything be seen through the eyes of said character? Wouldn’t everything be in a POV perspective, instead of a camera angle from outside all of the characters in frame? This element of the gimmick might not compromise others interpretation of the events featured in the story, but constantly broke my investment to the it throughout, and only further elaborated at the abundance of plot holes that I sadly can’t share due to spoilers.

– Horrendous dialogue. When the movie isn’t boring us with some of the most obvious observations with its overhead narration, the lines between characters are some of the worst that I have heard in quite sometime. Part of the problem isn’t the heavy-handed nature of their appeal, but rather unnatural quality to their inspiration, which reach for profound, but end up on the doorstep of stock noir lines that are so obviously intentioned for a gripping trailer over an authentic cinematic experience. Lines like “I’ll always have the memory of the time she walked into my life”, or “I go where the trash of the lost souls washes up ashore”, or “Memories are like perfume, they’re best in small doses”, or my personal favorite “All endings are sad, especially if the story is happy”, a line so contradicting and overtly emotional that it repeats it four different times throughout the film. Each of these produced a choir of groaning for my experience towards the film, and will inevitably shape many of Facebook status updates for years to come, for people trying to be “Deep”.

– Stalled storytelling. You start to see the problem in both the gimmick and the screenplay when there’s so very little meat of intrigue left on the bone in the current day narrative, as a result of frequently going into the past consistently throughout. I’m all for films pertaining to something that happened in the past for the benefit of the current, but this movie goes overboard on that concept while delaying the stakes and ensuing drama so forcefully that I often forgot what was at stake, and if not for the annoying echoing of the dialogue constantly retelling everything happening before the flashback, then I probably would’ve been worse for wear. As it stands, though, the flashbacks themselves often take too long to get to the importance of the delve, and leave the narrative as one of the many victims in the film, guilty of living in the past instead of the present.

My Grade: 6/10 or C