Hooray, it ONLY took 28 days but Comcast has finally replaced our service wire and we are
connected to everything our friend “The Internet” has to offer. Reminiscence, just released a few days ago on HBO Max stars Hugh Jackman, sounds like a good choice!
Okay, usually I don’t do this, but I’m only a few minutes in and I can already tell I made a bad
decision on my welcome back to streaming pick. The opening monolog, set against a flooded
modern city in the future, something about “the past haunting a man” in dreadful monotone.
Worse yet, I just checked and this mess is one hour and fifty-eight minutes!! Glad I have the big
bottle of South American Red handy.
Okay, it seems our lead Nick Bannister (Jackman) is an investigator who delves into the past
memories of clients. He does this by having the subject put on a headset and then having them
float in a tank of water. Then he starts a droning monotone “You’re going on a journey, a
journey thru memory. Your destination is a place and time you’ve been before. To reach it, all
you have to do is follow my voice” Then the visual memories are recorded on a small disc and
stored.
Nick has a lot of clients, many want to relive happy times from their past and then there are
odd requests, such as Mae, a beautiful woman wearing a red gown who arrives without an
appointment at closing time, who is in need of a session to find her lost keys. Assistant Emily,
played by Thandie Newton, knows bull when she hears it, but Nick is all about a beautiful
woman who needs a quickie in his water tank and so it begins. Honestly, the minute I see Mae
in the red gown, I immediately think of Jessica in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I didn’t need to
float in a water tank to remember that memory.
Mysterious Mae and Nick start a hot and heavy relationship, but it ends when Mae disappears
without a trace. Nick is heartbroken and starts spending all his time in the water tank
remembering their time together and searching for clues in his memories to find Mae. He tells
Emily “To find her, I need to know where she has been” So dramatic, NOT!
Honestly, the whole searching for Mae and her whole backstory is way too long because you
know the ending already. How? Because we know, at the end Nick and Mae are going to
spend the rest of their lives floating in a water tank and reliving their wonderful few months
together.
How do I describe this movie? Futuristic, science fiction, film noir, a poor imitation of the Alfred
Hitchcock style. Add in the whole climate change and the flooded city with the rich in the dry
section of town, and the poor people in a continuously flooded section of town. And the world
is now nocturnal because it’s too hot during day hours. I get it, climate change is here and not
good, but how much are we throwing into this mess.
This is all just too much, and as I said previously way too long. The production team was trying
to make a lot of social statements, when they should have just put their energy into writing a
coherent script. Thandie Newton, you deserve better, did you read the script before you signed
the contract?
Reminiscence, is rated a solid D don’t waste your time. As for a drink, if you chose to give this a
chance, get yourself comfy on the couch, pour yourself a double of whatever will knock you out
and hopefully you will fall asleep and have no memory of this mess.
