Reminiscence Review

Sci-fi and noir thrillers are two genres that many filmmakers have merged together. Directors like Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, and Christopher Nolan have made great films in the neo-noir genre and Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy attempts to join them with her feature film debut.

In the future, Miami has been flooded by rising sea levels. Dikes and dams have been erected to try to keep the floodwaters out, but they are only holding off the inevitable. The city suffers from a wealth divide that’s bubbling up. Because the present is so bleak people escape to the past through memory machines.

Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) runs a business in Downtown Miami where people can relive their memories. One night a lounge singer, Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), visits Nick and the pair form a romance. When Mae disappears Nick sets to find the Englishwoman.

Reminiscence seems like it’s going to be one of the biggest flops of the year. In its first weekend, Reminiscence only made $5 million worldwide and only has a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes. This was a shame because in a cinematic landscape of franchises and CGI-heavy action films Reminiscence was refreshing. It was a film that was a mature mystery and attempting some deeper themes.

Reminiscence’s themes were both psychological and social. This was a film that centred around the power of memory. People escape in their memories, the District Attorney’s office uses the memory machine to interrogate suspects, and Nick has to use his own memories and other people to try and find Mae. Joy was using her mystery and setting to explore the function of the mind, similar to what Inception and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind attempted. Joy is married to Christopher Nolan’s brother which has led to Reminiscence being unfairly compared to her brother-in-law’s work.

The use of memories and nostalgia acts as a commentary on today’s culture. A lot of today’s pop culture-based is on existing franchises or replicating styles from previous decades. Politics also uses nostalgia with some voters and politicians longing for a glorious past. Reminiscence was similarly themed to Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One because reality was so awful that people escaped to another world. In Ready Player One, the alternative world was a nostalgia fuelled virtual reality.

Joy taps into big issues facing the world: climate change and the wealth divide. We can’t escape news about climate change and the impending crisis it will cause. Joy plays on those fears and shows a world where main cities are flooded but humanity is so stubborn that they do try and hold back the water. This was a world where the rich build higher and higher flood defences and the poorest members of society have been forced onto the water. Miami was a powder keg that was about to go off.

Joy did create a fascinating world which made for a great backdrop for Nick’s mystery. As stated, there was a class divide with lots of political and corporate intrigue. Due to the heat of the day Miami had become nocturnal. The world felt more believable than some other cinematic sci-fi worlds and I would have liked to have seen more of it.

Reminiscence was a trope-heavy film. Like many film noir stories, there was an emphasis on the lighting where smoke and dust-filled rooms and many scenes highlighted the darkness. This was a film that justified why it was mostly set at night. There was a gothic look to some locations: Nick’s operation was based in an abandoned bank and there was a scene that took in a flooded theatre. Another scene had a man wearing a suit and a fedora and Thandiwe Newton got to be a hard-drinking badass wearing a trenchcoat.

Like many noir-style stories, the events in Reminiscence were caused by a dame. A woman comes to the protagonist for help, the woman disappears and the protagonist becomes obsessed as they try to find her. It was a standard plot and that leads to Reminiscence’s biggest promise: feeling derivative. The plot wasn’t much different to other sci-fi thriller films like Mute and What Happened to Monday where the driving incident was a disappearance. Mae’s disappearance and Nick’s search for her could have fitted in a contemporary setting.

Nick provided a voiceover for the film with Jackman speaking in a hard-boiled manner. But it came off as exploratory as he talks about the world he lived in. It was done for the benefit of the audience. Joy was trying to ape the tropes of the noir genre that she did things that didn’t benefit her film.

Joy was a competent director and she did craft great imagery and scenes. The flooded Miami was striking as many tall buildings were surrounded by water and travelled across via different modes of transport. When Nick had to chase a lead in the city’s slums it showed Joy’s potential as an action director. An emotionally powerful scene was when Nick spoke to a hologram during his search for Mae.

It was a shame that Reminiscence underperformed at the box office. It deserved more of an audience and hopefully, it will find it on home release. Ambition can at least be admired.