The Good: Decent acting, Good characters, Good chemistry
The Bad: Initial pretense is pretentious, Editing
The Basics: Overcoming its own maudlin and potentially campy moments, Remember Me is a cinematic love story that actually has good chemistry and engaging characters.
My wife is not big on romantic movies, which I think is funny, but I make up with an appreciation of love in film on my end. And as New Moon (click here for that review!) made its way to DVD, Robert Pattinson was doing his part for promotion by having his new film, Remember Me released to coincide. As a result, he's was doing press for both films and there were just enough to the clips I saw on television to make me go see the film. But for me, the key selling point was not Pattinson (before or after having seen the film). Instead, I was curious how Emilie de Ravin performed in it. De Ravin was noticeably absent from the fifth season of Lost (click here for my review of that) and Remember Me was one of the projects she worked on while on hiatus from the popular television show.
Emilie de Ravin is what sells Remember Me and it is her performance, as well as the on-screen chemistry she has with Pattinson, that makes Remember Me a winner, even if it does have its schmaltzy aspects. And while I could have lived without some of the set-up and initial characterization of Pattinson’s Tyler, I found myself liking Tyler once the initial premise of the film was abandoned.
Ally Craig is eleven years old when she witnesses her mother being killed. This leads her to be something of a free spirit, even years later as she does her best to live each day as if it were her last. At the same time, it seems to make her father, a police officer, more aggressive on the job and he has a habit of roughing suspects up and being protective of Ally. One person he roughs up is a college kid, Tyler, for his behavior when witnessing a crime. When Tyler and his roommate, Aiden, learn that Sergeant Craig has a daughter, who just happens to go to NYU with them, Aiden forms a plan. Aiden pushes Tyler to start dating Ally as an act of revenge.
This contrived concept puts Tyler and Ally together and while Tyler initially uses his charm to worm his way into Ally’s life, it is soon her charm which causes Tyler to become legitimately invested. Disarmed by how Ally eats her dessert first, Tyler realizes he cannot shoulder the responsibility for hurting her and Ally nudges Tyler toward working things out with his own estranged father. She also starts to open him up to the simple joys in life and despite conflicts, they begin to find themselves drawn to one another.
Sadly, for a film that both embraces and rejects any number of clichés – one of the aspects of Ally that is so likable is that she calls Tyler on his b.s. and the lame moves he tries to put on her, upsetting the frequently formulaic nature of the beginning of the movie – the movie goes for a New York City cinematic inevitability which I cannot discuss as it occurs at the climax of the film. Even though the movie ends up somewhere problematically predictable in a Nicholas Sparks-every-romance-has-to-have-tragedy type way, Remember Me makes good use of the time it occupies and it ultimately works. The viewer does not feel cheated at the climax because once the ridiculous “revenge-on-the-cop” plot is abandoned, Remember Me actually becomes a decent character study and Ally and Tyler make good use of their time together.
Part of what makes the romantic drama work so well is the chemistry on-screen between de Ravin and Pattinson. More than in the Twilight movies, Pattinson shows some real charm. And in addition to being realistically playful in the playful scenes, Pattinson holds his own against the stern façade Pierce Brosnan puts on to play his father. Charles Hawkins is a businessman and while Ally lives each day to the last since her mother’s death, Charles seems to have buried himself in his work in order to cope with the suicide of his other son. But until one sees them on screen together, it is hard to guess that Pattinson could hold his own dramatically with a potential powerhouse as Brosnan – who, admittedly, steals the scenes he is in – and plausibly be Brosnan’s son. While their scenes have a wonderfully realistic, awkward quality to them, they work beautifully and the viewer feels the tension of years of conflict between them.
Even so, Remember Me does have its melodramatic moments, starting with the writing. Will Fetters wrote a screenplay which is remarkably on the nose. There are frequent points where the viewer feels they are watching a movie, as opposed to people who are speaking organically. Fortunately, there are self-referential moments that work and as a result, the pretenses fall away at points and both Ally and Tyler become characters who are raw and very real.
Director Allen Coulter does an equally good job with keeping Remember Me visually interesting and long before the end comes, the viewer has a strong sense of time and place. New York City acts as a decent setting, despite the fact that so many films have been set there and the City acts as a plot device at important moments. Unfortunately, Coulter also cuts many of the scenes abruptly and that also adds to the sense viewers are likely to have that they are watching a movie.
Remember Me is a good film for couples and one suspects that it will do well on DVD, as it should, as a date movie. But as post-Oscar season swelled of movies worth watching, Remember Me steped up as a romance worth seeing that does something too few romances manage to do: it tells a story where the characters work and have enough to plausibly develop a relationship. Tyler opens the door on a stupid premise, but soon the reality of sharing similar pain takes the story in a direction that allows the characters to become vital and viable. It’s hard to think what else a romance could do but that.
Now on DVD and Blu-Ray, Remember Me features two different commentary tracks, which are very informative, but ultimately repeats a lot of information from the sole featurette on the making of Remember Me. Still, those who are looking for a lot of depth into the creation of the movie and the cast's impression of the film, there is a lot here.
For other romantic dramas, please check out my reviews of:
Valentine's Day
Going The Distance
Memoirs Of A Geisha
8/10
For other film reviews, please visit my index page for an organized listing!
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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