|
 In cinemas Thursday [M]
Director: Allen Coulter
Runtime: 113mins
As the credits rolled at the end of a recent screening of Remember Me, I sat with two other film critics and chatted about the film. We argued about certain elements and plot developments of the film and what we perceived as various faults, until I observed that this was one of the rare occasions where we were still in the cinema after the lights came up – normally, people are bolting for the door as soon as the credits appear. There must have been something compelling about the film if we were still talking about it.
Well ... forgive me if I avoid spoilers here; this film is better discussed with people who have seen it, rather than those who are considering heading in. There’s a twist at the very end of Remember Me that I didn’t see as such – I picked that particular plot development in the opening scenes, and then spent the rest of the film working out how the characters would reach that point – but everyone else in the cinema had been surprised at the climax. So director, Allen Coulter, and first-time screenwriter Will Fetters must have done something right.
Remember Me opens as a young girl witnesses the mugging and murder of her mother on a train station. Ten years later, we meet university student, Tyler (Robert Pattinson) as he glowers through his education, supplementing a meagre student income by working in a bookshop alongside a highly horny best friend and room-mate, Aidan (Tate Ellington). Tyler is estranged from his corporate lawyer father, Charles (Pierce Brosnan), and fiercely protective of his precocious younger sister, Caroline (Ruby Jerins), who has her own problems at school.
After a chance, brutal encounter with cranky police detective, Neil (Chris Cooper), Tyler and Aidan realise that Neil’s daughter, Ally (Emilie de Ravin) is a fellow student, and Tyler takes Aidan’s challenge to exact some vengeance. But this sassy young woman is more than the boys realised, and Tyler soon finds himself falling in love.
There are some good performances here, with the ever-reliable Chris Cooper excellent as the over-protective father, and Pattinson momentarily lifting himself out of the sulky mode that has made him famous in Twilight and proving that he can actually act; this is only momentary, actually, as he inevitably resumes sulking. But despite Coulter’s considerable experience directing episodes of tense television programmes like The Sopranos and The X-Files, I couldn’t help feeling that the denouement of Remember Me was a little too contrived.
***˝
TIM MILFULL
|
| Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged. |
|
Be first to comment on this article
