Directed by: Lisa Joy
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Cliff Curtis, Thandiwe Newton
Why are private eyes in movies also tasked with narrating them? Reminiscence's Nick Bannister (Jackman) is saddled with enough baggage and plot to match without having to also tell us about what we're watching and how he feels about it. One of Hugh Jackman's strengths as an actor is his belief in the material, whether it's good or bad. In Reminiscence, Jackman is thrust into a world of noir and heartache set in a future Miami that is partially underwater following a war and the results of climate change. Miami now resembles Venice and water taxi business is booming.
Nick Bannister is a private eye who assists the local DA with the use of Reminiscence, a machine in which the unconscious user is submerged in water and with the aid of electrodes attached to his/her head is able to relive memories. Nick makes suggestions to the person's subconscious to draw out desired memories. The memories are then seen and recorded as holograms. When he is not helping the DA depose people with the machine, he charges others who want to revisit better times from their past. One Dark and Stormy Night, Mae (Ferguson), a lounge singer with a form-fitting gown wanders in from the rain. She wants to use the machine to find out where she left her keys last. (I shit you not). Nick is instantly smitten while his loyal assistant Watts (Newton) smells a rat. Of all the time displacement centers in all the world, she had to walk into Nick's. Now, if the name Watts stirs your subconscious wondering where you heard the name before, you can think back to 1987's high school comedy Some Kind of Wonderful, in which the Watts character was in love with the hero, who was in turn pining for the most popular girl in school. The Watts character in Reminiscence follows a similar character trajectory.
Nick begins a passionate romance with Mae which lasts a few months before she vanishes without a trace. Nick then uses the machine himself to pick out clues from his memories to figure out her whereabouts. He is led on a journey to New Orleans, where he finds his beloved and idealized Mae is Not Who She Seemed. Nick refuses to believe Mae is anything than the sweet sex kitten she purported herself to be while Watts does everything but roll her eyes. This great cast does what it can with characters who are forced to endure the varying twists and turns which are only marginally compelling.
We are pulled through a morass of subplots involving a land baron, illegitimate children born from illicit affairs, killings, drugs, AND a potential citizen uprising against the mayor and the land baron who lives on a mansion on dry land while the rest of the Miami denizens must swim from place to place. Why the story must take place in a waterlogged Miami is anyone's guess. I suppose it adds to the noir premise, but it is still possible to make an exciting noir film that isn't grim and weighed down by all of the sidebars and tangents. It wasn't done here, but it is possible.
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