Remember Me.

What’s this! Another review already?! Are you finally back to your old form? You may be asking this if you even care about these reviews that I do. So just pretending for a minute that you do, the reason I am posting this is Remember Me isn’t just a good or great film, it’s a bloody fantastic film. My head is still throbbing and my nose is still running from how devastated this film left me. Not just that twist ending that made my hair stand on end but a film unrelentingly bleak and angry. So emotionally raw if this film doesn’t make you feel something, you have no soul. I mean, wow, fucking wow. This is going up there with Heartless and Ink on my favourite films of my life so far and that says something, since I normally find a reason to hate every movie I see.

To try and sum up what this film is all about is hard because there is an incredible amount of things going on, almost like one whole years of a soap opera in one two hour movie. Thankfully it never feels rushed. Honestly that plot summary I did was dreadful and really does this marvellous film no justice at all so I took it out to make sure it doesn't put people off the film before I've even written anything. Erm, there is a man called Tyler and a lady called Ally. Tyler's brother committed suicide and Tyler found him. Ally's mother was murdered right before her. They fell in love. That is really all you need to know for this review to make sense.

It’s shot like a piece of art. The score is breathtaking and although the acting is extremely spotty the anger of all the characters is consistent and believable, there are many scenes where you could easily see the film taking the cartoony cliched way of showing anger like spurts of extreme violence (okay that happens once or twice) or throwing things around the room (okay that’s done occasionally as well). But ultimately the rage is normally pretty controlled and characters act much like you would do in the situations the characters find themselves in.

Or at least I could, because most of the key plot and character points I relate to, perhaps not specifically but I have similar situations and cases in my past and present like the kind of things that are going on and happen as the film progresses which probably helped my enjoyment (if you can call it that). Yes okay, shut up about my life!

But in serious, thankfully it rarely takes that extra step like many films do, normally pushing characters to do things in anger normal human beings don’t do. Like one scene Tyler (our lead character played by Robert Pattinson, yes don't let that sway you. Although he often mumbles and over acts throughout the film, when he really needs to go for gold, he really comes through here) cycles across town to show his father a picture that his daughter drew for him (there is a whole sub plot of blaming the father for Tyler's brothers suicide and a subplot about his daughter [Tyler's little sister] is convinced that he [their Dad] doesn't like her) and then ultimately goes on to claim that the Dad will push both of his remaining kids [Tyler and his sister] to put ropes round their necks too. Now I really was expecting a punch up here but instead they push Tyler away and tell him to get out and he does just that. Much like how it’d happen in the real world. I understand that for some people this is a problem because ‘cinema should be about escapism’ and most 'resolution' in the 'real world' is anticlimactic which is a fair point but if you’re looking for escapism you shouldn’t be watching this movie anyway, this is probably the closest thing I’ve seen to Social Realism by American’s.

Aside from some occasional bad acting and a few continuity errors here and there I guess the only other ‘problems’ I have with this movie are well..sketchy at best. Why? Well as much as I try to view films as a consumer and not a film student, it’s hard to separate myself from who I am. Like for example. I thought the score and the way this was shot and filtered was fantastic, I thought this film was beautiful a work of art (yes you've said that already!). But with me trying not to sound like I’m calling mainstream viewers stupid (because that isn’t what I’m trying to do) you may find this film pretty damn pretentious. Not only in the way it’s edited and lit and the way music is used and it is shot, etc but Tyler’s character in his entirety may piss you off if you’re already finding the atheistic  pretentious in the first place.

Tyler has multiple monologues throughout the movie and I don’t know if it’s just me but it’s normally those existential motivator kinda bullshit like they always had on the beginning and end of Grey’s Anatomy at least I think because for some reason like I said I don’t know if it’s just me, but I always zone out of these egotistical monologues about ‘deep philosophical’ views on the world and so if I as a film student find my brain naturally shutting me out, if you like bread and butter mainstream Hollywood (which I reiterate isn’t a bad thing) these monologues will probably only piss you off.

Second ‘problem’ is well, this film really doesn’t follow genre conventions all that closely. I actually know nothing about this films background because I literally finished the film and wrote this and I probably should have researched it better first but I really wanted to get my ideas down. But I’m sure I remember this having a theatrical release so it should have followed genre conventions, it’s kinda the rule. But really, this doesn’t.

It opens with Ally’s (the main female love interest played by the stunning Emilie de Ravin [we get lots of lovely artistic shots of her back, yum]) Mother being murdered and really for the first half an hour, little happens aside from when Tyler gets in the fight with Ally’s Dad (who is not only a cop but a total wreck after his wives murder and has serious anger problems) and then Ally and Tyler finally meet and then well, not much happens again. For a little while it dips into the indie romance movie territory before all the bleak rage begins to pick up again until it’s full speed for the dramatic ‘conclusion’. And so if you’re used to the comfy safety net of genre conventions (ONCE AGAIN before I get the ‘STUPID PRETENTIOUS FILM STUDENT CUNT!’ comments, there is NOTHING wrong with this) this film will probably take you out of your comfort zone in a big way.

Really, I don’t want to say anything else. I also kinda don’t wanna recommend this just so I can be like ‘IT’S MY FILM’ just like Ink always was with my friends. But in seriousness, if you like bleak, depressing angry films (so all teenagers ever) which don’t end in a neat happy way and instead hurl a brick into your face while screaming (metaphorically of course) then watch this film. If you just trust me and my opinions and taste and have similar tastes, give it a go. But for all you Hollywood viewers (ONCE AGAIN) I don’t think you’d get much out of this to be fair. I LOVE THIS MOVIE.

Think About It!

-Locke.