By: Andrew Wing
Reminiscence is a 2021 American neo-noir science fiction film written and directed by Lisa Joy, in her feature directorial debut. Joy also produces the film alongside her husband and creative partner Jonathan Nolan (younger brother of acclaimed director Christopher Nolan). Lisa Joy is best known as the co-creator, writer, director, and executive producer of the HBO science-fiction drama series Westworld (2016-present) that has garnered both and her husband, who is also a co-creator for that series, multiple Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
The film stars Hugh Jackman in the lead role as Nicolas Bannister, a veteran turned self-esteemed private investigator living in Miami, who is an expert in a dangerous occupation in which he offers his clients “reminiscence”, the chance to relive any memory they desire. The film also features other big names such as Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Doctor Sleep), Thandiwe Newton (Mission: Impossible 2, Crash, Westworld), Cliff Curtis (Training Day, Fear the Walking Dead), Marina de Tavira (Roma), and Daniel Wu (Tomb Raider, Into the Badlands).
Reminiscence was released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States on August 20, 2021, and will also have a month-long simultaneous release on the HBO Max streaming service.
THE GOOD
As a big fan of the HBO series Westworld, I was super pumped when I saw that Lisa Joy was making a science fiction movie, and even more pumped when I saw the names attached to it. We might as well start there, both stars Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson are great in this movie. Jackman is obviously one of the best actors out there today and he shows you why in Reminiscence. We all know he is great when it comes to action as we have seen him do time and time again as Wolverine / Logan in the X-Men film series and he puts his skills on display in multiple scenes throughout the movie.
But my favorite thing about Jackman as an actor which I don’t think gets enough attention is how good he is in dramatic roles as we saw with Prisoners (2013) and even a little bit in The Greatest Showman (2017). You instantly feel emotionally attached to his character of Nick Bannister in the first half of the film despite not knowing much about his character’s backstory in the military, which is all credit to Jackman’s portrayal of him.
As for Rebecca Ferguson, she just shines in every scene she is in. She obviously grabs your attention with her natural beauty, but she pulls you in even more with her powerful presence on the screen. Also, with her character being a jazz singer, we get the privilege to hear her sing and boy does she have an outstanding voice. She was my favorite part in the 2019 horror film Doctor Sleep, and she has also been a perfect addition to the Mission: Impossible franchise, and to say her future is very bright would be an understatement.
Other than the acting in the film, my favorite part would have to be the cinematography done by Paul Cameron. The movie just looks so cool and I thought they hit the ball out of the park on the setting. The movie takes place in Miami in the near future, where climate change has caused the seas to rise and flood the city, so the roads were flooded with water obviously and there were just a ton of scenes dealing with water and they were all so well done. You can tell right away that they wanted it to look similar to Westworld and it does with the big city/tall buildings similar to what we get in season 3 of the series, but it still makes it its own thing with the addition of the water and I loved that.
THE BAD
When making a movie in the science fiction genre, it is so critical that the story be original and as much as I enjoy this movie’s narrative, its biggest flaw has got to be how similar it feels to some of the best science fiction films ever made, specifically Blade Runner (1982) and Inception (2010) in my opinion. I say Blade Runner because it is set in the near future and it also just brings off the same vibe with the two main characters loving each other, and honestly the posters of both movies even look similar to be honest.
Obviously Inception comes to mind just because you had them “dreaming” as the main part of that movie, whereas in this they are “reminiscing” on their past memories. The worst part about this movie being similar to those was that for me, it made the movie too predictable in some scenes which was disappointing. Just ask my brother whom I watched it with, a couple times throughout the movie I looked over and told him “I knew that was going to happen” or I gave him a sarcastic “shocker”.
The other thing with this movie that I felt was annoying was just the fact that I did not know why everything was happening. Obviously, I was able to follow the main plot between the two main characters and that is good, but there was so much more that I felt I should have known about the main characters. For example, Jackman’s character has a gimp when he walks the entire movie and it's assumed that he got it while serving, but we never find out exactly how. We really never got to know much about his time in the military which ticked me off because he clearly carries a lot of baggage with him from his experience as any veteran would.
Also, why is the world now sleeping during the day and awake at night? I know it had something to do with the climate change that caused sea levels to rise, but I just wanted to know more about this world. Don’t get me wrong, the world the movie is set in is certainly interesting, but I just felt it would have been beneficial to not only myself as a viewer, but to also the movie as a whole if we could have gotten a 5-10 minute introduction to why everything is the way it is in this, but I guess we will never know unfortunately.
Also, I hate to say this but I did not particularly like the performances of both Thandiwe Newton and Cliff Curtis. Newton’s performance was really disappointing in my eyes. Her character is one of my favorites in Westworld and because of seeing her talent in that, I felt she was underutilized in this movie. Her character’s relationship with Jackman’s is so much more than we get to see and I wanted to see more of them together on screen. As for Curtis, he is such an underrated actor, but I did not love him in this. First off, I didn’t like him as the antagonist, and also I don’t know why they had to give him an accent...like is it supposed to make him more intimidating? Because for me, it did quite the opposite.
Lastly, and I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts, but the ending kind of felt like a punch in the face. You spend over one hour and forty minutes diving into this story, getting emotionally attached to the characters, only for the so-called “winner” in the end of everything to be someone you see on screen for maybe a total of a minute or two.
THE VERDICT
Despite its ambitious take on the science fiction genre and some fantastic cinematography, Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy’s directorial debut Reminiscence still felt far too similar to some of the classic sci-fi flicks of the past. That similarity made the movie a bit too predictable at times for me, but the performances from stars Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson make for an exciting journey.
TED TAKES RATING - 6.2/10
Reminiscence is now playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max. Check out the latest trailer below.