Visually lush yet never engaging, Reminiscence proves to be a sci-fi mystery noir of little intrigue and unconvincing world building.
Written and directed by Lisa Joy (TV’s Westworld), the 116 minute Reminiscence is a film that tries with all its might to draw us into a future world inhabited by the romantically tragic archetypes of golden age Hollywood film-noirs, yet instead has the superficial air of a glossy perfume ad. Joy has the high-concept ideas and movie stars to bring her vision to life, but she stumbles with the execution, with themes of love, loss, time, and memory washed away in a sea of pixels that never come together to make a convincing whole.
Hugh Jackman stars as Nick Bannister, a private investigator of the mind who, along with his loyal booze-hound assistant Watts (Thandie Newton), allow their clients the opportunity to relive memories of their past through ground-breaking technology. When one day sultry lounge singer Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) enters his lab, a smitten Nick falls madly in love, only to have his heart broken when Mae disappears. An obsessed Nick dives into his memories in search for clues about where she could have gone.
Set in a future Miami, the first thing of notice is the water drenched streets that these characters inhabit, Joy envisioning a world in the throes of climate change. It is a spectacle that is indeed unconvincing in its presentation, a grandstanding aside that distracts from the central story, which has its own glaring problems.
Key among them is a lack of chemistry between Jackman and Ferguson. Although both are handsomely shot and have solid moments individually, the combination of the two just does not “pop” as it should, resulting in a lack of the emotional stakes needed to create the intrigue and drama that Reminiscence sincerely lacks. Even an often-topless Jackman and constantly “leggy” Ferguson fail to raise temperatures, so artificial the whole experience.
Joy has made a name for herself with her work on Westworld, yet her feature film debut is a clumsy, albeit ambitious, failure of tone and visual heavy worldbuilding. No doubt it will be long forgotten in no time.
