Mindscape

Mindscape, given the less tantalizing title 'Anna' upon release, is a thinking person's thriller, and perhaps a little bit too much so. In the near future, or perhaps some alternate reality, some humans have evolved into pseudo clairvoyants who can enter the memories of other people and interact with their subjects within them. This talent has been trademarked by law enforcement, who employ 'memory detectives' to psychologically resolve conflict or retrieve otherwise out of reach information. Mark Strong is one such man, but his talents have dimmed a bit following the deaths of his family and a crippling stroke. Hauled out of retirement by his former boss (Brian Cox, sly as ever), he finds himself tasked with navigating the labyrinthine mind of Anna (Taissa Farmiga) a girl accused of murder and deemed a potential sociopath pending diagnosis. The film is deliberately dense and elliptical, not standard Hollywood fare at all, which is nice to see, but it also trips just a little bit on its own cognitive aspirations, especially in the third act. It's one of those pieces that's less like The Cell, and more like Vanilla Sky or Danny Boyle's Trance (two absolute favourites of mine) where so much of the story wades through muddy mindgames that at a certain point we think to ourselves 'well who's to say if any of this is actually real if it's gotten so complex', and indeed it's very difficult to piece together what has transpired here, especially with a conclusion that would require multiple viewings to even get an inkling. It's stylish as all hell though, given a clinical, steely grey palette punctuated by flourishes of startling red to show the capacity for violence lurking just out of sight within the opaque and enigmatic human psyche. The acting is top tier as well; Strong is reliably committed and intense, Farmiga is deeply disconcerting as the most fascinating and ambiguous character, showing blossoming talent that I look forward to seeing more of, while Cox steals his scenes as per usual. The film trips over itself a few times and like I said, overly convoluted, but it's one mesmerizing effort for the most part, albeit after a second or third viewing.

Anna, or Mindscape as the original title goes, rides heavily on the presence and acting capabilities of its two main leads, Mark Strong as John, a psychologist with mind reading abilities, and Taissa Farmiga as Anna, his young and eerily disturbed patient. The film itself revolves around the idea that certain humans have developed their latent psychic abilities to such a degree that they can read the minds of others and thus help them overcome traumas and illnesses of the mind. Yeah, it's a bit Inception-esque, but it's different enough in style and atmosphere that you won't mind.

Still, the best part about this film is Mark Strong. His quiet dignified performance holds almost all of the scenes together and his interactions with Farmiga are very interesting to witness. Farmiga's performance suffers a touch from her relative inexperience, at least compared to Strong. You can definitely tell that she's acting in the earlier scenes, but she gets better quickly and her character as a whole nails the eery wonder child trope.

Plot-wise the film is nothing special, being relatively easy to predict and offering no real twists, but it's more of a moodpiece in any case. I would have liked for the actual mindscape scenes to be a bit more creative and the story as a whole to be a bit more overreaching in scope, but those lacks only mean that the film is merely good instead of great.

Mindscape is worth a watch if you're looking for a thriller with a more thoughtful tone and lacking in excessive brutality and gore.

This is a highly suspenseful and cerebral mystery , filled with red herrings , twists and turns . This is a thrilling Spain/Britain co-production being well paced , intriguing and skillfully made . It is an agreeable if overly familiar story about a "memory detective" charged with rummaging through the repressed recall of a troubled young woman accused of a terrible crime . The producer/director Jaume Collet-Serra who made successes such as Orphan, Unknown, Non-Stop brings us another stirring picture , ¨Mindscape¨ or ¨Anna¨. Exciting and moving picture with a complex intrigue , nice character studio , suspense , a lot of killings and full of flashbacks with a peculiar spectator : the same protagonist John/Mark Strong . As its deals with John, a mind detective (Mark Strong, in his first leading role in a feature film), plays paid to enter people's memories and uncover the reality behind their alleged crimes . As John enters her mind and becomes more involved in her sometimes brutal memories , he must decide if she is indeed the victim of unspeakable trauma or a very clever and manipulative sociopath . With a combination of hand-holding and a little bit of coaxing he can enter a person's memories, whether they be formative or traumatic, and while he can't interact with them his observations reveal information that can be used later in therapy or criminal trials . Due to a traumatizing event in his past that ends up coming back to haunt him, and ultimately negatively affecting a session . But what will he make of his new assignment, the brilliant but troubled teenager Anna ? (Taissa Farmiga as Anna, as the picture is known here in the States, is called by its original title of Mindscape) .

Jorge Dorado's brain-twisting horror-thriller , from the beginning, the film keeps the audience interested, hooking you immediately with a strong start . The film contains tension , thriller , drama , mystery and plot twists , including decent suspense with tense sequences especially in its final part , in a unexpected denouement , near of the end . Decent thriller in which nothing is the way it seems , the atmosphere is already tense and the twists and turns are the best part of this movie . Hitchcock-style psychological thriller , being surprisingly realized and compellingly designed ; however this efficient production no match for a forgettable screenplay. There is something riveting about the concept of a person with the ability to get into another person's mind, with also having the ability to experience their memories , as the film is an experience, full of the thrill of a universe that involves memory detective agencies . The original as well as entertaining idea is overspread throughout the movie , but not totally satisfactory , including conventional pitfalls and the flick attempts to get you in the mood for some memory-scouring detective work . Mindscape is a suspenseful horror with a fantastic twist , though also packs some flaws and gaps . The motion picture is pretty well , although sometimes stagy and packs excessive turns ; however is entertaining for continuous suspense . The story is narrated by means of flashbacks about past and present , realizing a complex as well as interesting crossover . The film was noteworthy for casting some of the finest actors in England . Nice acting by Mark Strong as a memory detective with the ability to assist in solving crimes by getting into the minds of witnesses . Anna is played with effortless panache by one of America's best upcoming talents - "American Horror Story's" Taissa Farmiga . Very good support cast gives good acting such as Brian Cox , Albert Amman, Indira Varma , Saskia Reeves , Antonia Clarke , Richard Dillane and Noah Taylor . Sinister and mysterious atmosphere including a colorful cinematography , as it is finely photographed by cameraman Oscar Faura . Suspenseful and stirring musical score Lucas Vidal

The film was well produced by various producers ,Jaume Collet-Serra , Maria Contreras , Tom Drumm ,M.A. Faura , Mercedes Gamero ,Nathalie Marciano , Peter Safran and Juan Sola , all of them have produced a lot of successes in the new Spanish/British cinema . Being professionally directed by Jorge Dorado . The movie will appeal to suspense buffs and Mark Strong/Taissa Farmiga fans . Rating : 6 ; acceptable and passable . It's well worth watching and contains some really thrilling scenes and suspenseful images .

This movie has one of the best openings ever, thrilling,containing a lot of suspense and well directed, which could also be said about the movie as a whole. The lead actors were quite excellent as well. The movie effortlessly keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout...going into one dimension into another,demanding your focus and attention. So it isn't wishful thinking to expect a great ending leaving an impact on you, but I guess it was. The series of plots and twists in the movie can become a bit too much towards the middle,but it gets on its track later...only to fall over a cliff and crash into the ground at the end. Yep,that's how bad it gets!! Psychological thrillers require a bit of in-depth thinking and attention to enjoy and so does 'Anna'...a great ending could have made this movie a masterpiece but it wasn't meant to be. I would still recommend it if you are into psychological thrillers but do not have high expectations.

I need to stop reading IMDb reviews for this type of movie. I skipped all the ones who had possible spoiler alerts, but everyone else saying you had figured it out before he did, and the last 20 minutes are useless and so forth did jade me. And reading the reviews did a funny thing, I thought I knew exactly what was going on and I was wrong. So I guess reading the reviews gave me the wrong ideas. Which was actually quite funny because I kept waiting for my version to come down and it never did. So I missed the obvious because I was sure that was not the story. Okay the movie was enjoyable. It was well done. It was a fun thriller/mystery. I thought the acting was good. I liked the concept, and I think I may of really liked it better if I did not read the reviews first. It is not sci fi at all, just the idea of going into someones memories is a cool concept, but the movie was a straight up mystery/thriller. Just watch it and enjoy it with a bag of popcorn and have fun!