Reminiscence (2021)
(On Cable TV, January 2022) Perhaps the most entertaining element of Reminiscence is how hard it works at re-creating a futuristic setting fit for a noir thriller. It frequently looks great, occasionally feels different but never feels convincing. In the admirable Science Fiction tradition of smashing together two separate elements, it takes for granted both a technology to explore memories and climate change bad enough to submerge the land around Miami. Splashing in this backdrop is a memory retrieval expert (Hugh Jackman, appropriately grizzled) who gets embroiled in a sombre story the moment an alluring client (Rebecca Ferguson) walks into his office. The noir DNA in this film is omnipresent—and it doesn’t take much to start seeing how much it seems to be inspired by Chinatown, with its private investigator, water motif and reproductive misconduct by a land tycoon. Even the post-WW2 feeling of classic noir, where nearly everyone was a traumatized veteran, is duplicated thanks to references to climate-change wars. Not much of it makes a lot of sense—a submerged Miami would lose buildings on a weekly basis (let alone keep its electrical power), the memory-retrieval tech somehow isn’t limited to first-person perspective; and someone’s got a plan so convoluted that it only makes sense in movies. But if you’re going to even start to enjoy Reminiscence, you better come with a large bag of indulgence, because writer-director Lisa Joy (of Westworld fame—you’ll recognize several common names between the two) is more about atmosphere than logic. That doesn’t absolve the film of its flaws, though: shaky world-building and rough plotting are accompanied with some tonal inconsistency (such as an out-of-nowhere action sequence dropped in the film at the midway point just to wake people up) and some major shortcuts taken. I did like the film’s attempts to ape noir style, can’t fault Jackman, will always enjoy watching Thandi (w)e Newton, but Reminiscence itself curdled the more I thought about it and started poking at the root of my lack of satisfaction with it. Science Fiction is not an excuse to throw up anything on screen—in fact, SF fans will tell you that it’s a genre that’s even less forgiving of logical holes than other genres: by building another reality, SF movies invite scrutiny they must sustain.