"Remember Me" Review by The Blurb

***SPOILER***

At last — an intel­li­gent roman­tic drama

You have to give credit to a film which starts pow­er­fully and grabs you by the eye­balls. That’s cer­tainly the case here. A dra­matic sequence with strik­ing cam­era angles and light­ing makes an instant impres­sion and sets the mood for this gritty romance about two dys­func­tional fam­i­lies. Aided by strong act­ing and an intel­li­gent script, Remem­ber Me is a cut above most roman­tic films.

Tyler Hawkins (Robert Pat­tin­son) a rebel look­ing for a cause has a dif­fi­cult rela­tion­ship with his estranged high fly­ing father (Pierce Bros­nan). Street-hardened cop Sgt. Neil Craig’s (Chris Cooper) wife was shot dead by hood­lums in front of his young daugh­ter ten years pre­vi­ously. Craig in recent times has become over protective.

When Tyler and his best mate Aidan (Tate Elling­ton) get involved in a street brawl they’re arrested by Craig. By coin­ci­dence, Craigs’s daugh­ter Ally (Emi­lie de Ravin) attends the same col­lege as Tyler and he’s encour­aged by Aidan to make out with her in order to get back at the rough han­dling he expe­ri­enced from her dad. In a sub-plot, Tyler’s young sis­ter Car­o­line (Ruby Jerins), some­thing of a roman­tic dreamer, is set upon at a party. Tyler is out­raged by this and his father’s appar­ent indif­fer­ence to Caroline’s suc­cess as a bud­ding artist.

Tyler and Ally actu­ally fall in love but their hap­pi­ness is short-lived as fam­ily pres­sures and secrets cre­ate an unten­able sit­u­a­tion threat­en­ing their rela­tion­ship. Things are sud­denly brought to a head in an unex­pected and dev­as­tat­ing con­clu­sion; the moral being to make the most of every day.

Direc­tor Allen Coul­ter, whose pre­vi­ous fea­ture was Hol­ly­wood­land as well as episodes of The Sopra­nos, lov­ingly crafts a pic­ture of New York at in impor­tant time in its his­tory. He’s clearly com­fort­able with his actors and gains excel­lent per­for­mances. Credit must go to Will Fet­ters’ script with its lay­ers of mean­ing and con­vinc­ing dia­logue. Cin­e­matog­ra­phy makes use of colour to suit the mood, with impres­sive camerawork.

At the risk of get­ting abu­sive mail, I have to con­fess I’m not a great fan of Robert Pat­tin­son (Twi­light) in his limp vam­pire out­ings. He’s on his met­tle here, with a touch of the young Mar­lon Brando and a sense of being real. You should applaud a good per­for­mance as this one deserves. His inti­mate scenes with the cur­va­ceous Emi­lie de Ravin (Pub­lic Ene­mies) have that elu­sive elec­tric tin­gle, their love­mak­ing cap­tured sym­pa­thet­i­cally rather than bor­der­ing on the porno­graphic. The shower sequence is a good exam­ple. They make one of the screen’s more pleas­ing roman­tic couplings.

Chris Cooper (The King­dom) puts in a sen­si­tive per­for­mance with depth as the tough but heart­bro­ken cop. This reli­able actor seems to fall into roles that suit him. It’s good to see Pierce Bros­nan (Mamma Mia!) in seri­ous mode for a change, doing much to con­firm his sta­tus as a fine actor. A sur­prise packet is young Ruby Jerins (Shut­ter Island) as Car­o­line, she’s just a charmer and steals her scenes right out from under her co-stars. Tate Elling­ton (The Inven­tion of Lying) pro­vides a level of comic relief as Tyler’s close friend, while Lena Olin (The Reader) emo­tion­ally cap­tures his griev­ing mother who lost her other son to suicide.

Remem­ber Me may remem­bered after other roman­tic movies are for­got­ten for its com­pelling per­for­mances and intrigu­ing script. It cer­tainly sur­prised this reviewer, as I was expect­ing much less. Be warned — the shock twist at the end is a gut punch.

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