Rememory

Rememory - A sci-fi thriller with borrowed plot points and an unsatisfying conclusion. It's definitely worth the price of admission, however, being that it's free on Google Play before it comes out in theaters.

The movie centers around an invention that allows people to view memories from any point in their life. It doesn't get bogged down in the science behind it, allowing the story to unfold. The problem is, it's not a very good story.

Although the memories of these characters are on full display, I never felt like I got to know any of them. The main character, played by Peter Dinklage, is a figurine maker, but is seemingly Sherlock Holmes as well. I don't know how much PTO comes with a job like that, but he spends all his time investigating a murder on his own volition. It never feels like he's truly given a challenge at any point, and the movie is too busy trying to throw you off the scent that it doesn't seem to care.

One thing that jumps out, however, is that the movie makes zero reference to the fact that Peter Dinklage is a little person. His stature is often the main focus of his character on Game of Thrones, but any actor could have gotten this role. Given what he lays out on screen here, the overall movie notwithstanding, it's clear why he earned the part.

Another positive performance is offered by the late Anton Yelchin. He plays a troubled young man on the brink of total mental collapse. He put all he had into his small role, showing that his untimely death robbed us of decades of potential in the world of cinema.

If you want to see a better execution of the technology featured in this movie, I would direct you to the BBC (now Netflix) anthology series, Black Mirror. Each episode is its own independent story, so you can jump in at any point. The one entitled 'The Entire History of You' delves deeper into the topic, and also happens to be my favorite of the entire series. Yes, Rememory is currently free, but you already have Netflix on every device you own. Queue it up. 5.25/10

I am an easy sucker for any sort of film involving memories (Memento, Rashomon, etcetera) and this one had a plot synopsis that just begged me to take it in. It also made me think of the movie "The Discovery" about a scientist who supposedly finds proof of the afterlife, and while many people are committing suicide, he develops a machine that lets him apparently view a recently deceased person's memories.

I would have liked to see some manner of mystery or even a bit of incoherence done with the memories that are played back in this film. They all look too perfect; perfect vision, perfect audio, camera angles that would require the person to be behaving very oddly (such as an extreme closeup of someone's fingers playing the piano would've meant the viewer would've had their head resting on the piano). The intro video the scientist Gordon Dunn shows at a presentation looks absolutely nothing like recorded memories, and completely like something you'd see in a GoPro promo or some other HD digital camera technology.

The thing about memories, even fresh and recent ones (at least in my experience) is that they can often be an incoherent mess. Sometimes I won't remember large portions of conversations, but manage to somehow understand the conversation that was unfolding. I can "feel" certain attitudes and concepts and sensations rather than hear them. Sometimes the memories are completely wrong, as well; sometimes it's foggy and blue on a summer day, and sometimes just by the act of trying to remember something, I don't so much "remember" as create a fantastical re-construction of the memory.

Nothing of that sort is explored in this movie, and it's quite a shame, because the story that they did go for is very plain and straight-forward. The memories just become a sidepiece and a means of confirming people's stories in a murder investigation being conducted by one incredibly lucky and bold man.

Peter Dinklage is that man, playing Samuel Bloom, some guy whose brother dies in a car accident and who now he is obsessed with getting into contact with Gordon Dunn to use his machine so he can view his own memories, obsessed with remembering what his brother's last words were as he was dying.

In the process, he takes it upon himself to pretend to be various people, question people involved in Dunn's memory experimentation, use the machine to confirm their stories, and so on. He is perfectly at ease using a fake name and taking advantage of having watched people's memories before meeting them so as to better pass himself off as someone who may have worked for Dunn or with one of the subjects.

But this also makes for another thing that the movie just passes over, to its detriment. Peter Dinklage is a little person. There's no mistaking it when you see him. This never comes up in a derogatory or limiting way for him or his character; his character could just as easily be played by any other actor of any other size and nothing at all would change about the film or the character.

But while that's a good thing for him as an actor, it leads to some really odd moments in the movie, as well as a plothole or two, where Peter Dinklage's height would either be a liability for his character, or a benefit for certain characters who are trying to track him down. Knowing that he is a little person would make finding him significantly easier, especially when he thrusts himself into the middle of the murder investigation by stealing the memory recording machine.

It feels like the film was more focused on its plot, blissfully unaware of how predictable it was, rather than filling out the details that could have made the movie much more intriguing and fun to watch. The desire for Sam to revisit his brother's death just to remember his last words loses a significant amount of impact when those words are actually revealed, and it turns out you already figured it out right at the start of the movie when the death happened. It hardly feels fair to label it as a spoiler because of how predictable and ultimately insignificant it was.

It also feels like the filmmaker at some point realized this was a very insipid line to follow, and rather than commit to it in some mildly nihilistic way, they tack on a pointless twist, one which not only plays little to no role in the ending, but one for which, due to them ignoring Peter Dinklage's height, becomes a rather significant plothole.

Overall, this was a movie that had a fun and novel concept to play with, toyed with us with the potential of this concept (the idea of a world in which anyone's memories could be viewed on the spot by others in perfect HD) and proceeded to do very very little with it, more focused on its boring and predictable story than with running wild with its imagination and doing something really memorable.

There are many ways how scifi is played out on screen, from mega-budgeted science action fantasy with the likes of Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy and the rebooted Star Trek, all the way to scifi of which science-fiction is but a frame around matters of the human heart. This film is of the later, a precautionary tale about why the malleable and fading nature of memories shouldn't be altered.

If you come in with the right expectations , then you will not be disappointed by this film of stellar acting, and direction.

Other films of the same vein, of which you should watch: 1. Eternal sunshine of the Spotless mind (Jim Carey, 2004) 2. The Final Cut (Robin Williams, 2004) 3. an episode of Black Mirror (The Entire History of You , Season 1 Episode 3)

I don't know if this is the first time Peter Dinklage leads his own movie, but hopefully it will not be his last, cause he really made this film. He just had me so into what was going on all the way to the big revealed in this murder mystery.

In it, Dinklage plays a man who lost his brother in a car accident, and can't remember the last words he said before dying. It messes him up badly, until he discovers a man who invented a machine that can recall and playback your memories and while he attempts to get a hold of this machine, the inventor mysteriously dies and he gets caught up in trying to find out how he died.

The movie is a little above average. It was an interesting mystery, mostly because of the cleaver plot device that centers around it (The machine that can record your memories, giving it a bit of a Sci-Fi appeal) but the real reason to see the movie is Dinklage who gives a fine performance to focus on rather than any loop holes you might find.

I think this movie took so long to get into theaters because of Anton Yelchin's death. They may have had to do some reediting or reshoots to accommodate his passing. It does not seem to effect the movie any, but who knows how good the film could have been if his passing actually did delay it's release. Plus, he's the other reason I went to see the movie.

I also enjoined Julia Ormond in the film, who played the inventor's widow. The parts she shared with Dinklage especially really pop out at you. I did not go into this to see her, but it was an extra added surprise.

Definitely something great to watch. A decent murder mystery with a cool plot point made really better with the help of Dinklage, Ormond and Anton Yelchin (RIP).

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I find myself at a bit of an impasse with Rememory. Most critics felt it was meandering and dazed in its attempt to capture melancholy profoundly. That Rememory was unsure of its footing and never reached stable ground to begin with. I don't disagree with that, but I do disagree that what it gave wasn't enough.

Most movies can improve upon something somewhere, Rememory is no exception. Peter Dinklage carries the movie with his empathetic, melancholic, and reminiscent Samuel Bloom. His performance throughout is packed with emotion and push for the story, a snapshot of lives interwoven into a mystery. But without his character and even with it things don't ever pick up pace too much.

From my view Rememory doesn't seem like it's meandering or unsure but rather that simply it's content knowing the envelope wasn't pushed, that the message within was more important in the director/writer Mark Palansky's mind. And that, the message, is where my impasse comes into play.

I don't think anything exceptional is done here. There's a fair handful of shots that're delectable, the set design is good, same for casting, costume design, VFX, and the writing is stable. But not driving the story as much as it could. Instead Samuel Bloom wanders his way through a story with no suspense, and a climax that is equal parts sorrow, and malaise. More malaise than anything. It's like a stitched together series of beautiful shots (and satisfying color grading) but more like a Black Mirror episode without the darkness, or the drive.

Despite that, I enjoyed Rememory immensley, I felt a connection to the characters, and I know all too well how longing for what once was feels like, and what it feels to want to forget. What was shown spoke a lot to me. My rating for Rememory is far more biased than I am known to do. Everyone has biases and while my rating is largely based on what's presented in the film it's also how it made me feel and because of that take this rating with a grain of salt, you might not connect and you might think it's far worse. Not everyone has dealt with loss that permeates, regrets that rip you open, or have to live with all that knowing that "moving on" is just another name for a lie. A cut always leaves a scar, time doesn't change that.