'Reminiscence' Review
PG-13: Strong violence, drug material throughout, sexual content, and some strong language
Runtime: 1 Hr and 56 Minutes
Production Companies: Kilter Films, Michael De Luca Productions, FilmNation Entertainment
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: Lisa Joy
Writer: Lisa Joy
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, Cliff Curtis, Marina de Tavira, Daniel Wu, Mojean Aria, Brett Cullen, Natalie Martinez, Angela Sarafyan, Nico Parker
Release Date: August 20, 2021
In Theaters & HBO MAX
Set in the desolate future of Miami where water levels are high and class disputes are rampant, war-veteran-turned-private-investigator Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) and his assistant Watts (Thandiwe Newton) create a business for people who want their fondest memory recreated. To hell with VR! If you want to go back to your past, you go to them and they’ll take you to their machine called “The Tank”. But when a mysterious client named Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) walks into Nick’s life, he falls head over heels for her until she unceremoniously disappears. While working on a mysterious murder plot case, Nick finds that the love of his life is a prime suspect, which has him question if the woman he loved was real at all.
For the past several years, writer/director/producer Lisa Joy has been changing the sci-fi game on television with HBO’s Westworld, which she co-created alongside her husband Jonathan Nolan. It quickly became one of the most popular series on TV and has garnered nothing but love for its three-season run thus far. Now, it’s only fair that Joy took her work from the small screen to the big screen with her feature debut Reminiscence, a sci-fi film noir that mixes the likes of Black Mirror with Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
It’s been a very long time since a film captured the energy of a classic noir. I’m not just talking about your regular neo-noir film (which comes out ever so often), but a good ol’ ‘50s-era film noir where your leading man is a gumshoe whose world gets turned upside down by a gorgeous, mysterious woman and abides by the genre’s classic formula. Lisa Joy’s Reminiscence captures that nostalgic energy in such a loving and passionate manner while making it her own with a compelling sci-fi twist.
With her feature screenwriting and directing debut, Joy fully realizes her dystopian setting that gives you chills due to the beautiful yet eerily lifelike visual effects. She’s a visionary when it comes to creating dystopian worlds and her imagination is at the forefront here.The establishing and overhead shots of a flooded, futuristic Miami are so detailed and eerily lifelike with the water levels being so high aboveground, the only mode of transportation being water taxis. Plus, the film was shot on location in Miami so it bleeds into the illusion that this future could potentially become a reality. The water-related backdrop plays an integral part in the theme of class where there's a clear disparity of wealth regarding water level where the dryer the land is, the more expensive it is to live there.
I love how Joy plays with her subject’s memories when they’re in the tank machine and are projecting flashbacks through a powerful holographic machine or projector. She keeps you on your toes making you question if some details in the mystery are of past or present. There are sweeping camera movements to make the flashbacks more immersive to the audience than just a simple jump cut to the flashback scene itself.
Various sequences of violence are epic in scope and brutal in execution. While the film is not action-packed, for it abides by the nature of the film noir formula, it has some of the best and intensely choreographed fight sequences I’ve seen this year. There’s an extensive fight scene between Hugh Jackman and Cliff Curtis, who portrays a crooked-cop-turned-assassin that spans across various locations and it’s visually breathtaking. I didn’t expect a one-on-one combat scene between Hugh Jackman and Cliff Curtis to be so damn engaging in 2021, but here we are. The film showcases Joy’s skill as a filmmaker whose work from TV translates to the big screen with the same level of vigor and quality. She puts so much passion into her storytelling and direction to make this sci-fi noir flick look like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
The talented ensemble cast helps elevate the film’s vibes with their performances, which span the likeness of classic actors, and individually they are strong as hell. Jackman delivers a monotonous, grizzled American dialect that’s hard-edged yet calming like your typical noir lead, such as Bogart or Stewart. All he’s missing is a fedora, but that would’ve been too on-the-nose. As the film progresses and Nick becomes more obsessed with his missing lover, the more he comes to his realm of confidence and Jackman strongly delivers that progressing arc. He also has genuine chemistry with Thandiwe Newton, who portrays his cynical and judgemental assistant. The two have great banter where you feel the history of their friendship in their interactions and expressions. Just as she did in Doctor Sleep, Rebecca Ferguson steals the spotlight whenever she’s onscreen as the center of the mystery, appearing as a jack-of-all-trades that keeps you on your toes. She’s devious, seductive, intimidating, and through the memories of others, Mae exhibits various skill sets that make you uneasy. By the time she dons a ravishing blue dress and appears at a nightclub singing her heart out (well, I assume it’s her this time around since she didn’t sing in The Greatest Showman), you can tell Ferguson is meant to exude Lauren Bacall energy.
Reminiscence is familiar from its setup to its plotting. This is such a classic film noir with old-school sensibilities, for it involves Nick going up against crooked cops, drug lords, a political affair, with a seductive lover at the center of it all. That being said, Lisa Joy’s screenplay and characterization of her characters are intelligent and thoughtful. There’s an arc to Nick and Watt’s journey where their hardened emotional shells are lowered down due to the adventure of this mystery. Nobody has effectively applied this kind of storytelling — serving as a love letter to a sub-genre while being able to stand on its own — since Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Though Reminiscence hits all the familiar beats of the typical film noir genre with gumption and ambition, much of the first act is so rushed that you don’t get proper development for the relationship between Nick and Mae. By the time you explore where their relationship begins to blossom, she’s already revealed to be missing. It’s not specified how long the two have been dating outside of a vague “rough few months” while Jackman and Ferguson fail to emit solid chemistry. A more believable sexual tension was present in The Greatest Showman, and that was a family film! Their relationship is meant to be the driving force of the film and while they’re both great in their performances as individuals, their relationship doesn’t get as much development as it should in order for you to fully root for their reunion. Newton and Jackman have better romantic tension than anyone else. Hell, there’s a moment where Ferguson and Newton speak about the betterment of Nick and even THEY have better romantic vibes during that scene.
While the film attempts to tie together a theme about class and wealth disparity (because that’s usually the primary twist at play during noirs), its message gets somewhat muddled by the finale. It’s very much pushed to the background and delivered like an afterthought. The screenplay needed some fine-tuning to make all the pieces of the puzzle fit together in both concept and development. The film has a nearly two-hour run time and it could’ve been a little longer to further the romance between Nick and Mae and the functionality of the city itself apart from narration and exposition.
Reminiscence is epic in style, craft, and storytelling, delivering a classic noir with contemporary sensibilities. It’s a fully thought-out sci-fi noir, unlike anything I’ve seen in a very long time. It's original yet familiar; it’s so ambitious and executes its concept with heart, personality, and meticulous craft. I had to watch this at 10 AM in an IMAX theater and not only did it wake me up, but it also blew me away. Nobody makes movies like this anymore. I don't care that it's formulaic by design because it’s entertaining and engaging as hell.
