A gloomy romance about beautiful people in the big, beautiful city, Remember Me flirts with preposterousness on multiple occasions but still comes through with its dramatic potency very nearly intact. Given that the film's central relationship revolves around a guy dating a girl just to get back at her policeman father, this achievement is nothing to scoff at.
Directed with a graceful sense of place by Allen Coulter (Hollywoodland) from a highly overdone script by Will Fetters, Remember Me starts on a lonely New York subway platform at night, where a mother and daughter are waiting for a train. Since we're told this is 1991 (the World Trade Center glows meaningfully in the background), it's clear that nothing good can unfold here.
Cut to summertime in Manhattan, ten years later. The daughter, Ally (Emilie de Ravin) is a student at NYU, living in Queens with her still-in-mourning father, Neil (Chris Cooper, nearly feral with grief). Auditing the same class with Ally is Tyler (Robert Pattinson), a rich kid slumming in a dump of an apartment with comic-relief roommate Aidan (Tate Ellington, always turned up to 11). Coming up on 22, the age at which his beloved older brother committed suicide, Tyler swans about in a cinematic kind of despair, where everything seems done with italics. We watch him smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, staring out the window; and getting into fights.
After throwing some punches in a back alley and mouthing off to the cops, Tyler gets his face smashed in by the empathy-challenged Neil and tossed, along with Aidan, into jail. After they get bailed out by Tyler's wealthy, distant father Charles (Pierce Brosnan), Aidan comes up with the idea for seducing Ally as a means of enacting revenge. After a deeply awkward pickup scene, Ally and Tyler become an item. It's a strained meet-cute, and one that will test the patience of most viewers as the two damaged souls dance around each other's wounds with Fetters's self-conscious, would-be-clever dialogue.
Pattinson's callow presence is problematic, given the amount of time the camera spends honed in on his well-tussled hair and dramatic cheekbones. His dirge of a performance threatens to turn the film into one truly epic mope; Tyler is barely able to order dinner without sounding as though he has just uncovered another deep, echoing well of heretofore unknown angst. There are occasional glimpses of something real in Pattinson's face, particularly in the scenes where he's doting on his little sister Caroline (Ruby Jerins), but more often than not his take on Tyler's soul-deep pain fails to register.
De Ravin does her best to pick up the slack, delivering some gutsy work in an underwritten role. Watch the way she neatly snaps off, "Queens, and I don't wanna hear about it," to a cabdriver, and it breaks nearly every New York acting cliché -- there's no put-on boroughs pretense, just the wearied reaction of someone who's heard it all their lives.
Some of the weight is taken off Pattinson's slumped shoulders as Tyler's family enters the picture, and we get some interesting dynamics as they make token moves to stitch themselves back together. Tanned and gimlet-eyed, Brosnan is like a criminal boss just starting to remember how to be human again. At the dinner where Tyler introduces his father to Ally, his distant father and brand-new girlfriend get on like old friends, even further isolating the sullen Tyler. Cooper is memorable as well; even in a cast full of mournful spirits, he's further gone, nearly feral with grief.
Not long after the film starts to develop a sustainable momentum -- helped along in particular by Coulter's deft handling of most of his cast and Jonathan Freeman's bright, organically summery cinematography -- it takes a tragic turn that will feel cheap to some, devastating to others. Remember Me is too manipulative to set itself apart as truly original, but too emotionally invested to be completely dismissed.
Directed with a graceful sense of place by Allen Coulter (Hollywoodland) from a highly overdone script by Will Fetters, Remember Me starts on a lonely New York subway platform at night, where a mother and daughter are waiting for a train. Since we're told this is 1991 (the World Trade Center glows meaningfully in the background), it's clear that nothing good can unfold here.
Cut to summertime in Manhattan, ten years later. The daughter, Ally (Emilie de Ravin) is a student at NYU, living in Queens with her still-in-mourning father, Neil (Chris Cooper, nearly feral with grief). Auditing the same class with Ally is Tyler (Robert Pattinson), a rich kid slumming in a dump of an apartment with comic-relief roommate Aidan (Tate Ellington, always turned up to 11). Coming up on 22, the age at which his beloved older brother committed suicide, Tyler swans about in a cinematic kind of despair, where everything seems done with italics. We watch him smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, staring out the window; and getting into fights.
After throwing some punches in a back alley and mouthing off to the cops, Tyler gets his face smashed in by the empathy-challenged Neil and tossed, along with Aidan, into jail. After they get bailed out by Tyler's wealthy, distant father Charles (Pierce Brosnan), Aidan comes up with the idea for seducing Ally as a means of enacting revenge. After a deeply awkward pickup scene, Ally and Tyler become an item. It's a strained meet-cute, and one that will test the patience of most viewers as the two damaged souls dance around each other's wounds with Fetters's self-conscious, would-be-clever dialogue.
Pattinson's callow presence is problematic, given the amount of time the camera spends honed in on his well-tussled hair and dramatic cheekbones. His dirge of a performance threatens to turn the film into one truly epic mope; Tyler is barely able to order dinner without sounding as though he has just uncovered another deep, echoing well of heretofore unknown angst. There are occasional glimpses of something real in Pattinson's face, particularly in the scenes where he's doting on his little sister Caroline (Ruby Jerins), but more often than not his take on Tyler's soul-deep pain fails to register.
De Ravin does her best to pick up the slack, delivering some gutsy work in an underwritten role. Watch the way she neatly snaps off, "Queens, and I don't wanna hear about it," to a cabdriver, and it breaks nearly every New York acting cliché -- there's no put-on boroughs pretense, just the wearied reaction of someone who's heard it all their lives.
Some of the weight is taken off Pattinson's slumped shoulders as Tyler's family enters the picture, and we get some interesting dynamics as they make token moves to stitch themselves back together. Tanned and gimlet-eyed, Brosnan is like a criminal boss just starting to remember how to be human again. At the dinner where Tyler introduces his father to Ally, his distant father and brand-new girlfriend get on like old friends, even further isolating the sullen Tyler. Cooper is memorable as well; even in a cast full of mournful spirits, he's further gone, nearly feral with grief.
Not long after the film starts to develop a sustainable momentum -- helped along in particular by Coulter's deft handling of most of his cast and Jonathan Freeman's bright, organically summery cinematography -- it takes a tragic turn that will feel cheap to some, devastating to others. Remember Me is too manipulative to set itself apart as truly original, but too emotionally invested to be completely dismissed.
