Theatrical Review: REMEMBER ME
Rating: 7/10
Writer: Will Fetters
Director: Allen Coulter
Cast: Emilie de Ravin, Robert Pattinson, Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Despite starring Robert Pattinson, REMEMBER ME is not a film for the younger TWILIGHT fan in your life. There were parts of it that were traumatizing enough to me as a twentysomething. Keep your little sisters away, unless your little sisters are of age for a film that occasionally delves into physical violence, hotly-lit sex, and enough personal issues to make Oprah want to film her own special in honor of the film’s main characters. That all said, REMEMBER ME is an adult film that attempts to straddle the line between young romance and family drama. Does it work? Sometimes.
Tyler (Pattinson) and Ally (Emilie de Ravin) are wounded young people. But, fortunately for anyone who can’t stand self-pity from those without reason, both our leads have reason enough. Tyler is a shiftless twenty-one year old, undecided in all matters. He doesn’t have a close relationship with his high-powered attorney father (Pierce Brosnan), his mother has a new life and a new husband, and his beloved older brother killed himself (on his twenty-second birthday – Tyler has some issues with his next impending age change). The only people he really lets in are his little sister, Caroline, and his best friend and roommate, Aiden. His existence hangs in that nebulous territory just before one has to really embrace adult responsibilities. But instead of living a life of affluent leisure, Tyler spends most of his time sitting in an old diner, writing letters to his dead brother, and stoking the fire of deep resentment for his dear old dad.
Ally, on the other hand, is close with her cop dad (Chris Cooper). But, of course, even that relationship has its issues and pains. The two form a cohesive pair because Ally’s mother was murdered ten years earlier. In front of young Ally. Like Tyler, Ally doesn’t let a lot of people in. It’s not nearly as cliché as it all sounds, it actually all sort of works in a very believable way. Tyler and Ally feel like real people, and Pattinson and de Ravin feel real in them.
While this is a different role for Pattinson, and certainly a much more honest, adult role, it’s still not his great break-out project. It does, however, hint at his range. Pattinson goes beyond the deep self-loathing that sometimes makes Edward Cullen a tad insufferable. Tyler has real problems, and a real life. And his brand of self-loathing is more of a wounded young person, desperate for any sort of actualization, any sort of understanding. De Ravin is lovely throughout, alternately luminous and tough as nails. The film is often beautifully filmed, with warm lighting and inventive shots, and our leads look good in it.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you probably know how Ally and Tyler end up dating. It’s a bit of a cheap set-up, and the inevitable pay-off of is not hugely important to the trajectory of the film. What is important, and what is satisfying about REMEMBER ME, is the steadily building romance between Tyler and Ally. Pushed together by engineered fate and dueling daddy issues, they slowly unfold to each other. Framed up against Tyler and Ally’s romance-as-healing are continued slights in their respective families. It is during these times that Ruby Jerins as Tyler’s little sister utterly steals the show. If you think things are tough for Tyler – meet Caroline. Like her brother, she is a sensitive artist, but elementary school is no place for a gentle dreamer with a broken heart. Anyone who has ever felt out of place amongst their peers will see themselves in Caroline, and she will crack you open at every turn.
So, is there a twist to all of this? It’s a twist if you haven’t really being paying attention, not noting our time and place, not feeling that the film is careening towards something big and horrible. This ending is, at the very least, mildly traumatizing, and the overwhelming “bigness” of it feels emotionally manipulative in a bare bones sort of way. It is necessary? No. Was something like it necessary to get the point of the film across? Probably. REMEMBER ME doesn’t posit to be a slice-of-life, it’s a message sort of film. There’s a point to all of this (even if it is given on the poster – “live in the moments”). But it’s the choice to go so big that ultimately pulls away from its once-genuine aims. There is a quiet in the best parts of REMEMBER ME, and its loud wrap-up breaks that, unsettling the film in ways that feel insurmountable.
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