Reminiscence — Movie Review
by KJ Proulx
Original ideas that come from big Hollywood studios are a dime a dozen these days, with most of the best content coming from sequels, television shows, remakes, or great stories involving superheroes. As much as I don’t like having to say it like that, that’s where the focus has been for many years now. The greatest films of each year are usually the independent films that never get seen. Reminiscence is the very reason that’s the case. Everything about this film from the concept to the trailer itself had me intrigued, but Warner Bros. backed a project that doesn’t do anything with its concept, making for a poor film overall. On top of that, nobody seems to be talking about it, even prior to its release. Original ideas need to also be marketed just as much as the sequels and superhero movies out there, otherwise they will be left in the dust. Here’s why I believe Reminiscence to be a great example of a film that does absolutely nothing with its cool concept.
The first act of this film had me completely invested. Reminiscence begins with the explanation of what has happened to the world in the future and hardly anyone benefits from the remaining pieces. For that reason, people love to revisit their past memories. With the help of a business run by Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) and Emily ‘Watts’ Sanders (Thandie Newton), people are able to step into a mind device that shows them and gives them a euphoric experience, almost as if they are back in that moment. This device is known as the Reminiscence device and some thought-provoking questions are brought up throughout the film. This specific aspect of the film that makes the overall premise possible, is fantastic, but the premise itself is terrible.
When a woman named Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) enters their business, Nick instantly finds himself attached to this woman. Becoming romantically involved, they share some nice moments together, but then she vanishes. The premise of the film is basically the fact that Nick is obsessed with Mae and needs to find out where she went. I instantly found this choice to be a huge mistake because there was no way this particular story could’ve fulfilled the nice set-up of the world they live in. The further I made it into the film, the more and more I cared less about what was on-screen. The overall story was so unengaging that I didn’t care what the outcome was by the conclusion.
Written and directed by Lisa Joy, who is best known for her work on the series Westworld, I would say did a nice job directing, but I personally think the screenplay was overly written. There are far too many instances of narration by Hugh Jackman, basically spoon-feeding the audience with all of the information they need to understand each scene. I felt the world and characters more than spoke for themselves, making nearly all of the narration (although well-spoken) unnecessary. The visual style of the movie was also very cool to look at, blending the CGI background seamlessly with the in-camera imagery (most of the time). For how lived-in this world feels, I just felt like this film would’ve felt like a mess without the narration, but the narration was also distracting, so it’s a bit of a catch-22. I’m not saying I could’ve done better, but the tone of the film clashed with everything happening on-screen for me.
Overall, Reminiscence deserves praise for its unique setting and concept, but if that’s all a movie can provide, other than an overly simplistic disappearance plot, it fails as a whole for me. Hugh Jackman is giving it his all here and I thoroughly bought into this man’s obsession, but it felt like it belonged in a different film. Rebecca Ferguson also provides a nice level of mystery to the film with her performance, but again, how it was written just had me not caring. I can’t bring myself to recommend this one to anyone, but if you’re always looking for a cool sci-fi film to watch, you may find more enjoyment out of it than I did. Reminiscence is now in some theatres and streaming on HBO Max, but there are much better viewing options right now.
Rating: 2.5/5
Check out the trailer below:
