Review: "Reminiscence"

Warner Brothers brought on Lisa Joy to direct this project, and is best known for her work in developing HBO's hit show Westworld. This stands as her first feature film, and sadly it swings big but it's a swing and a miss. Reminiscence stars a lot of talent both in front of the camera and behind it with Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, and Thandiwe Newton. The stars in front of the camera have a hard time elevating a script that is trying too hard to combine elements of familiar mind bending films that we have seen and loved in the past. From the outside, with all the talent involved, this film seemed like a hit for Warner Brothers but it simply gets in it's own way too often. It also struggles with a bit of an identity crisis, unsure of whether it wants to be a noir thriller or a sci-fi action and not really succeeding at being either genre. Instead, the film just ends up coming off as a lesser Inception or more aptly, Strange Days. In the early 2000s, these kind of films seemed to be flooding the market and just as a whole, other films did what Reminiscence sets out to accomplish much better.

The plot follows Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman), a private investigator of the mind, that uses future tech that allows him to peak inside people's mind allowing them to access lost memories. At first it is rather touching as he helps people relive heartfelt moments with loved ones that have passed away. Eventually, someone comes knocking in the form of Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), who sweeps Nick off his feet as quickly as she came into his life. The two fall in love, but then she vanishes sending Nick on a journey through the past and the present to find out what happened to her. All the while, his partner Emily (Thandiwe Newton), urges him to drop this charade as she worries for his well being, and more importantly whether or not he will come out of his search alive.

The story isn't anything we haven't seen before, but the first twenty minutes or so is a hard watch as Hugh Jackman delivers similar lines over and over as he continues to tell the audience that the past haunts us, or that we haunt the past. It drives home the point a bit too hard and really drags down the momentum of the film to a bit of a bore. The other issue is that of the world the characters live in. In the beginning of the film, we are told of a war that radically changed the world and we see that the New Orleans they occupy flooded a bit forcing it's occupants to mostly live at night and sleep during the day as if they were living vampires. In a weird way, the backdrop of the war that took place becomes more intriguing and a film involving that story would've more likely been more interesting.

Hugh Jackman does a good enough job as the private investigator Nick and carries with him great chemistry with both his co-stars in Thandiwe Newton and Rebecca Ferguson. As the film drags on it becomes difficult to like his character, but Jackman's charisma makes up for it. As he often blindly pines over Mae, it is a bit hard to follow at times however. Rebecca Ferguson also makes up for a poorly written character in Mae and her scenes alongside Jackman's Bannister is surely going to be a draw for some looking for a sappy romance. Thandiwe Newton always shines as a character that wears her heart on her sleeve all the while being a bit dark and incredibly strong, nothing changes here with her character.

The biggest issues with the film sadly fall to that of the talented Lisa Joy. Her pacing of her plot is a bit suspect and the film could have definitely done well by shaving off some of it's runtime. The themes she tries to touch on throughout are a bit heavy handed and the characters don't feel completely real. It is a solid enough first feature film for the young writer-director but largely I suspect it'll be something that will ultimately be forgotten, if not already. The real crime of Reminiscence is that there is a good film in there somewhere but the final product just isn't intriguing enough even despite the talent.