Hugh Jackman did what he could with ‘Reminiscence,’ but it wasn’t enough
Set in a dystopian future of a flooded Miami, “Reminiscence” is a mediocre sci-fi and film noir film just released in theaters and streaming on HBOMax. Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson and Thandiwe Newton are the stars of this confounding journey about love, drugs and the past.
Nick is a former soldier turned private investigator who uses a machine called Reminiscence to help others relive their memories. He and his work partner/old soldier buddy Watts watch their client’s memories as they guide the client. They also use the technology as a form of interrogation.
One day a mysteriously beautiful woman, Mae, comes in because she can’t find her keys. Infatuated, Nick and Mae begin a whirlwind relationship. After she disappears without a trace, he becomes obsessed with finding out why.
For months he relives his memories of Mae until he finds valuable information from a criminal he is interrogating for the district attorney. The criminal’s memory of Mae, so polar opposite of Nick’s, throws Nick completely off-guard.
Chasing every lead he can, Nick becomes blindly obsessed and angry when he realizes Mae may have had ulterior motives, including the fact she stole some of Nick’s patient files.
The problem with this movie is that it starts off slow. It feels like forever before any interesting action even begins. Aspects of the storyline also seemed unexplained. It felt like a lot of plotholes and left me with questions at the end of the movie.
With the intriguing futuristic concept and a director like Lisa Joy, co-creator of the HBO show “Westworld”, it could have been an engrossing movie. But with a bland script with issues, it fell flat and honestly unmemorable. The film touched on some of the current hardships like the border crisis, climate change and even drug addiction, but those were pushed aside and used as a background filler.
Jackman, Ferguson, and Newton were not what was wrong with the film. They did the best they could with flat, one-note characters. It’s not that I didn’t like the characters; I just never found myself rooting for any of them.
“Reminiscence” failed to come together cohesively into an enthralling film. The only real standout that kept me watching was its unpredictability. This was a journey I wouldn’t want to revisit anytime soon.
