Remember Me

I decided to watch this upon viewing the C4 show 'Gogglebox' (a show about people watching telly in their own homes, for our international friends) and seeing the people at home moving forward in their seats, with their hands over their mouths, then jumping at certain parts. I thought it looked creepy and interesting.

Having watched it - it really is!

Firstly, it is beautifully shot. The landscape shots are truly atmospheric. And the score is tense and captivating.

Then there's the cast. The three main characters (the old man - Michael Palin, the young girl - Jodie Comer and the copper - Mark Addy) are all excellently played. I was especially impressed with Jodie Comer, who was also marvelous in My Mad, Fat Diary - I'm expecting great things from her in future!

And then there's the story, which is where I have a bit of trouble (and is the only reason I didn't rate it higher). I am intrigued by it - I can't work out how it's going to end yet. I do keep seeing bits that remind me of other work, though. I can see plot elements of The Ring (original Japanese version), Dark Water (original Japanese version), the Piano, Inception... I could go on. And I'm finding this somewhat distracting: "ooh, where have I seen that before..?"

It is good, though. I will certainly be watching the final hour with interest :-)

Hannah Ward (Jodie Comer) works at a nursing home. She lives with her younger brother Sean and drunken mother Jan (Julia Sawalha). A social worker falls to her death along with the window and Hannah finds elderly patient Tom Parfitt (Michael Palin) cowering on the floor. He is sent away to a hospital and he leaves her his suitcase. Police detective Rob Fairholme (Mark Addy) investigates the likely accident unless the frail old man somehow pushed the dead lady. Hannah is disturbed by strange occurrences and tracks down Tom who has gone missing. She is confronted by a ghost from Tom's past.

This is a BBC TV production. It's three hour-long episodes. It's a slow moody ghost story. It has a nice moodiness. It's a little too slow. There's no need for its three hour length. A conventional hour and a half movie would work fine. It's a ghost story but it's neither scary nor tense. It's a little spooky but that's all. Certainly, I watched this for Palin. He has a minor haunted role. It's limited but it's still nice to see him anyways. A shorter theatrical movie with a better payoff would make this better. I can imagine a J-horror with more effective scares.

I love a good horror movie. One of my favorites being Ghost Story. And I love Hitchcock. This one reminds me of combination of the two. Hitchcock was good at making us the viewer use our imagination. This does that. Now I am not one who gets scared watching horror movies, but for some reason this one made me want to watch it in the morning rather than at night before bed. Yes, it's slow paced, but the suspense would not be there if it moved too fast. After all it's only 3 episodes. I do wish Palin would appear more. This was done in 2014, but for whatever reason PBS is just airing it.

One of the major qualities of a good ghost story lies in the ways directors manage to make the familiar seem unfamiliar. They draw viewers into the story and then deliberately frustrate their expectations, and hence encourage us to wonder about what will happen next.

This is certainly true of Ashley Pearce's production, which casts Michael Palin in the central role as pensioner Tom Parfitt. British television viewers are accustomed to seeing Palin as the genial host of a slew of travel programs; apart from his Monty Python involvement, his roles have been largely confined to comedies such as THE MISSIONARY (1982). In REMEMBER ME he has a very different role as someone dying to leave his house and move to a retirement home; but we are not exactly sure why, especially when he seems uncomfortable in his new surroundings of an antiseptic room with large windows. He strikes up a relationship with Hannah Ward (Jodie Comer), but we sense that there is more to Parfitt's character than meets the eye. He seems emotionally affected, but director Pearce refuses to provide the necessary clues to help us resolve our confusion. Suffice to say that the story revolves around the seaside resort of Scarborough, immortalized in the folk- song "Scarborough Fair."

Stylistically speaking, REMEMBER ME creates a mundane world of an (unspecified) city in the north of England, full of gray terraced houses, damp streets and drab colors. People go about their daily lives, with their ordinary hopes and dreams: Hannah's family hope that their daughter will find a more rewarding career than just being a care home assistant. The community is a multiracial one, trying their best to look after one another, yet ultimately perplexed as to the reasons for Parfitt's apparently eccentric behavior. Like the viewers, Roshana Salim (Mina Anwar) and her family regard him as an enigma.

The pacing of the three-part drama is kept deliberately slow, alternating memorable visual imagery (for example, water gushing down the stairs of Parfitt's home) with clever use of sonic leitmotifs (the repeated singing of "Scarborough Fair.") Viewers are not only introduced into an abnormal world, but they are kept guessing right until the final episode as to what the action "means." Like most ghost stories, the plot involves a close interaction between past and present; neither of them can be kept separate.

REMEMBER ME requires a certain degree of patience, but the resolution is definitely worth waiting for.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable and atmospheric ghost story with a very Victorian feel to it, yet it takes place in the here and now. Others have described the plot, so I'll skip that part and just say each episode was fun to watch. The creepy atmosphere is kept at a steady rhythm and one is kept guessing as to the reasons for what is going on. You have to pay attention the entire time, which is perhaps why some viewers found it tiring. Clues are given in visual images of photographs and other shots, so you can't watch this program with your head buried in your cell phone. It's a quiet piece and you have to pay attention and participate as a viewer. There are several familiar faces to PBS viewers (Mina Anwar, Mark Addy, Rebekah Staton, Julia Sawalha, as well as some character actors). Michael Palin is touching as the main character, who is still tied to his nanny from a century ago (what a beautiful woman, by the way) and conflicted about the relationship. The final episode is where the pace picks up and it really is suspenseful wondering what is the meaning of that version of "Scarborough Fair" as well as wondering just how the story will end. I'm taking two stars off for the very clumsily written chief of police, who seems to serve more as a "conflict device" than an actual character. Also, Mina Anwar's character is gone after episode two without any feeling of resolution with her, considering her strong presence in the first two episodes. That said, the program is beautifully shot, well-acted, and steadily paced. One feels that one is moving forward all the time, without knowing quite what will be waiting at the end of the journey. This was a very enjoyable story and well worth watching.