Reminiscence

Reminiscence is a bit of an old wolf in a young sheep's clothing. It tells the story of a hard-bitten, war-ravaged fella called Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman), who runs a company that extracts memories for people who prefer to live in the past. His partner is Watts (Thandiwe Newton) and they seem to propping each other up, barely avoiding the creditors, until Rebecca Ferguson's Mae walks in, right on closing time, of course. Mae is your typical femme fatale, almost begging for a narration from Frank Drebin - "That delicately beautiful face. And a body that could melt a cheese sandwich from across the room." 

Huge Action falls for her obvious intrigues (a little too quickly, but it does tighten the run time) and things are going swimmingly until....she disappears. This is neatly explained by the method Bannister and Watts use to extract memories from their clients, as it cuts from a serenely romantic scene to one of Huge waking up in shock in a water tank, wires and gadgets scattered around. And here's a good enough spot to highlight the odd dichotomy of this film. The story is as old as the hills but the setting is refreshingly new, indeed futuristic. The world building from writer/director Lisa Joy is excellent, with hints of the film Strange Days and the fine Paolo Bacigalupi novel, The Wind-up Girl. On the flip-side of this are elements of the plot that are lifted directly from Vertigo and Double Indemnity. You can imagine this film in a past life, with Bannister played by Bogie and Mae probably Veronica Lake.

All this might seem a bit muddled but it hangs together well, though it does come across slightly overwrought at times, in keeping with its thematic sources. This is Joy's debut feature and she directs with a confidence that belies her inexperience. Admittedly, she's had as good old grounding, writing on TV shows like Burn Notice and Westworld (which she also co-created with hubby, Jonathan Nolan, brother of Christopher). The cast give it the full welly, Huge and Newton in particular, though Ferguson has her moments to shine as well. Omnipresent Cliff Curtis also has a sizeable role as a bent copper and he shares a tense scene with Huge and a piano (coincidentally, one of his first film roles was in The Piano).

The background of this near-future is impressively painted. Though it's not directly stated, global warming has clearly worsened, drowning many cities and plunging the U.S. - and likely the world - into border wars and a starkly uneven distribution of wealth. Life in Miami has turned nocturnal due to the daytime heat and much of the city is flooded, allowing us to see some fantastically rendered vistas of boats gliding past apartment windows and people walking through streets, ankle-deep in water. This permanence of moisture seeps through the film. Apart from the constant waves breaking against the city walls, water fills the memory tank, scotch is everywhere, an over-flowing glass of water acts as a metaphor for the 'beast with two backs', a train to New Orleans skates across the water (à la Spirited Away), and Huge almost loses his face in a fish tank full of eels. It's a wet film.

Sure, it wears its 1940s film noir influence in full, honking view, especially in some of the dialogue - "Don't say always. Always makes promises it can't keep." or "The past can haunt a man, that's what they say." If you can put up with this iffy homage, you might find a good, old-fashioned yarn splashing around inside.

See also:

There are riffs on the brilliant Chinatown (1974), directed by Roman Polanski, and though Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days (1995) is uneven and tails off at the end, it has some equally great imagery.