No, it wasn't a great movie. But it wasn't that terrible.
Reminiscence was the feature debut for writer-director Lisa Joy, co-creator of Westworld. Here, she was clearly interested in many of the same themes at play in that TV series: how memory defines you, dystopian futures, and that Thandiwe Newton is underappreciated by Hollywood. The movie stars Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, and Newton, and is a neo-noir mystery set "in a world" where technology can be used to relive memories, and people often use this to escape from the flooded, sun-blasted hellscape of the real world. Memory guide Nick is haunted by femme fatale Mae, who wanders into his life and then vanishes just as quickly. Was any of their relationship real? What truth was she hiding?
Like I said, Reminiscence isn't bad. It just doesn't cohere very well, feeling like there's only so good it could be (and this is basically it). The setting is far more grand than the story being told in it, and it isn't obvious why. The movie is set in future Miami, mostly overrun by flooding caused by climate change. It's a stylish and eye-catching take on a sci-fi dystopia, clearly made the movie cost tens of millions of dollars more to film... and really doesn't contribute much of value to the plot.
That plot is a quite rote "hard-boiled detective" story (minus the private detective), featuring an emotionally distant woman being chased by an overly obsessed man whose every thought is relayed to us by monotone voice-over. Because memory is a key element of the tale, the way the story is told is slightly novel compared to other noir -- the story can jump around in time for a dramatic punch (another element lifted from Westworld). It makes the story just interesting enough that it's hard to identify what you would ditch here to make a better movie: is it a cool setting lacking a great plot, or a good plot undermined by a distracting setting?
Also unclear: is it meant to be an action movie? There are perhaps two or three major sequences of chasing, gunplay, and underwater danger... but they feel a bit tacked on. This is what you do when you have Hugh Jackman (it's that, or have him sing). This is what you do when you make water a key element of your setting. But this definitely isn't a movie where the plot was crafted to connect individual, super-cool action ideas.
Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson are both relatively strong as their individual characters. But it's pretty stock for noir to button down the emotions, so there's only so much they can do together, and there isn't much romantic chemistry between them. Writer-director Lisa Joy knows enough to cast the best performer on Westworld, Thandiwe Newton... but apparently not enough to give Newton a really meaty part to play.
Gosh, it sounds like it really wasn't very good, doesn't it? But if I'm harsh, it's because the whole thing felt like a bit of a misfire. It never once made me think of reaching for the remote to bail out... it just also never really lives up to its abundant potential.
Perhaps there was no point in me even posting this review now. As is the HBO Max formula, it was removed from streaming 30 days after its premiere (to be returned later); at the same time, its spectacular box office failure means you can't go to a theater to see it either. So you can't watch this movie now, even if you wanted to. But for what it's worth, you probably don't want to... unless perhaps you have more affection for the film noir genre than I have. Perhaps this might come near scratching a Blade Runner-esque itch as few things do? I'd give Reminiscence a C+.
No comments:
Post a Comment