Remember Me (***)

Directed by: Allen Coulter

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Pierce Brosnan, Emilie De Ravin, Chris Cooper, Lena Olin, Ruby Jerins, Tate Ellington

Seen: March 24^th 2010

*** Out of ****

For what started out as a movie I thought I wouldn’t really mind missing, Remember Me was surprisingly good. Robert Pattinson as the lead character Tyler Hawkins was actually an inspired casting choice for reasons I’ll get to a bit later.

Ally Craig (De Ravin) witnessed her mother’s murder ten years earlier in 1991, and since then has decided to make small changes in her life; eating her desert first, for instance, in an attempt to deal with it. Tyler and his roommate Aidan (Ellington) are your cardboard cut-out unambitious 21 year olds, renting a run-down apartment and practically living in night clubs, always having the proverbial “only one drink”. One such night, as Tyler and Aidan are headed home with two girls, they come across a street fight, and while trying to break it up Tyler becomes a bit violent just as the police arrive. Detective Neil Craig (Cooper) lets Tyler go when the girls attest to his innocence, but arrests him and Aidan again when he can’t let things go. Tyler’s father, Charles Hawkins (Brosnan), bails him out but Tyler is the epitome of unthankful, as he has a terrible relationship with his father since the suicide of his brother 6 years earlier. Charles is removed from the family, divorced from Diane (Olin), and uninvolved in Tyler’s little sister, Caroline’s (Jerins) life to the point where Caroline believes her father hates her.

Aidan notices Neil dropping Ally off at school, and convinces Tyler to approach her and start a relationship to get back at the Detective. The relationship between Tyler and Ally blossoms into something bigger than just a passing infatuation rather quickly, and from there comes the forced romantic storyline: honeymoon period followed by a break-up event followed by a possible make up. While falling for Ally, Tyler does everything in his power to elicit a response from his own father, but the way in which he goes about doing this is not always the most diplomatic path, rather choosing an excessively rude attitude with sudden and fantastic anger outbursts for a coping mechanism instead of being a bit more level-headed. The break-up to make-up section is however handled in a refreshing way, and even though it follows much the same trajectory as any other romance, it felt more honest than most. Caroline is also regarded as an outcast at school, and subsequently gets picked on, with Tyler being one of her only refuges.

Remember Me brings a rather intricate family situation brilliantly to life on screen, with a very emotional resolution. There are clues given during the run of the movie alluding to the very significant time in which the movie ends, but they are very subversively placed in only about two or three small sequences, one right at the start of the movie (which no one will see, as it’s just a passing reference in the background), and another very close to its end before a revelation that could have done with being slightly more sudden, not so drawn out. It does pack a punch that might be perceived by some as a cheap trick, but the circumstances don’t require or refuse the possibility of this specific story.

Pattinson is an inspired choice as his demeanour fits very well with Tyler as character; while Brosnan is fantastic as the father you love to hate, with one shot in particular being extremely powerful, without him even speaking – brilliant. Ruby Jerins is refreshing and beautiful as Tyler’s 11 year old sister Caroline, and Emilie De Ravin is perky and depressing as the situation demands, to a tee. Remember Me will make you think; about how you conduct yourself in certain relationships, about how what you do might be insignificant in the long run, but that you should still do it, regardless the circumstances. Remember Me is actually a somewhat dark movie that turns out to be rather beautiful.