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What is pop civilisation nostalgia – the currency of so much of today's entertainment landscape – if not the mass monetisation of memory?
The sci-fi thriller Reminiscence, in which memory is something that can be mined for profit, suggests less a nearly-future extension of this thought than a straight-upward parallel to everything happening in the here and now.
"Nostalgia became a way of life," growls scientist turned private eye Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman), in i of those faux-'American' accents that can flatten a performer'due south natural nuance. "For me, information technology'southward a living."
It'due south the non-likewise-afar future, and an unspecified war – together with an environmental catastrophe – has turned the earth into a permanently flooded disaster zone. In a half-submerged Miami, its nocturnal streets awash with sludge, Bannister ekes out a living as a difficult-drinking investigator for hire, a kind of high-tech hypnotist who reanimates his clients' memories to assistance them spark joy, unite with loved ones, or fifty-fifty (in the scene that sets the plot in motion) discover their lost keys.
"Nothing is more than addictive than the past," Bannister tells his long-suffering business partner, Watts (Thandiwe Newton). "Nostalgia never goes out of fashion." (Take a shot every time he says 'nostalgia'. I cartel you.)
Bannister dunks his clients in a flotation tank that allows their memories to come up to life via a nearby hologram, a projection in which he tin roam around – with all the attendant perils of seeing another's deepest thoughts. Information technology'southward a neat enough analogy for the cinema, and our voyeuristic obsessions with the lives of others, a phenomenon as old every bit fourth dimension itself.
Just that's nearly as far equally Reminiscence's metaphor extends.
Earlier you tin grumble "The past can haunt a human being" – an actual line delivered by Hugh Jackman here – the picture show descends into the sort of difficult-boiled noir that's been worked over a billion times before; a genre that was already stale by the time it was revived and subverted in the neo-noir that flourished in the 70s.
No sooner has sultry nightclub singer Mae – Rebecca Ferguson, shrink wrapped in a ruby cocktail dress –wandered into Bannister's office than the private dick has fallen hard, following the femme fatale on a trail of corruption which leads [erstwhile-school motion-picture show trailer guy voice] all the way to the acme.
To Ferguson'south treacherous siren – a kind of Jessica Rabbit meets Lana Del Rey, just without the irony – you lot can add together a rapacious land businesswoman (Brett Cullen), a drug-dealing gangster (Daniel Wu), and a crooked cop (Cliff Curtis, haplessly trying on a New Orleans accent), plus a plot about resources hoarding and (more vaguely) class that flows all the style from Chinatown (1974).
Borrowing wholesale from the imagery of other films, from the flooded cityscape of A.I. (2001) to the memory-visions of Philip K. Dick adaptations Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990) and Minority Written report (2002), Reminiscence is a trad noir in future drag, forgoing the charged, philosophical ideas of its predecessors for something closer to a video-game dramatisation of 30s pulp.
Derivativeness is not the problem – all these stories stalk from somewhere – simply the lack of imagination, coupled with the film's deadly earnest tone, is another matter entirely.
Jackman'south amend qualities as an actor – his sense of humour, showmanship, warmth – are ill-served past portentous line readings of voiceover like "The whole city's rotten with abuse," "We're all haunted by something," or "I had to observe her… and it turns out she was already looking for me."
"The dead don't make telephone calls," is a line tailor-fabricated for goofball-era Leslie Nielsen, while no actor alive could seriously wrestle a howler similar "Memories are like perfume – improve in small doses" and not take an audition in peels of laughter.
Then once more, the pic'south torrid sex scene – a tryst bathed in the soft light of the erotic thriller, which climaxes with h2o overflowing from a kitchen sink – is exactly the kind of thing yous might detect in a Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy, then who knows: maybe Reminiscence is in on the gag.
The moving picture is written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Lisa Joy, who co-created, and helmed multiple episodes of, HBO'due south hit television serial Westworld. Like that evidence, which features an Old Due west amusement park populated by androids, Reminiscence represents a kind of simulacrum of science fiction and neo-noir picture palace – motion picture every bit algorithmically-generated content, nostalgic for things of which information technology can just dream.
And there is a fascinating flick somewhere in here: Bannister's solipsistic obsession with memory – a man high on his own private eye supply – speaks to culture's unsettling, and seemingly unquenchable retreat into the past.
Only any such richness eludes Joy's flick, which prefers – as it's certainly entitled – to dwell in the lesser stakes of an activeness thriller, its more than provocative concept a casualty in the crossfire. It'south non like it tin't exist done: in Strange Days (1995), Kathryn Bigelow fused an exam of abject voyeurism to an adrenalised, politically charged virtual reality thriller, for a flick that electrifies as much as it did a quarter-century agone.
While Joy's film is superficially concerned with the dangers of nostalgia, the exploitation of retention – later all, an historic period-old human crutch – isn't exactly the all-purpose spectre of greatest cultural concern.
Every bit Reminiscence – a feature film that looks and moves like high-cease, so-chosen 'prestige' television – proves, the real problem of our historic period is 'content': that mountain of indistinguishable landfill that poses picayune run a risk of condign anyone'south future nostalgia object.
All of this content… all of these moments. As i of the funniest lines in Reminiscence goes, it's all only "a dewdrop on the necklace of fourth dimension." Your move, Rutger Hauer.
Reminiscence is in cinemas now.
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Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-20/reminiscence-film-review-hugh-jackman-sci-fi-thriller/100389726