Went to see this movie with my friend A yesterday at the Leeds/Bradford Odeon.
IMDB says: A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.
In this Ridley Scott (Alien, Bladerunner) produced, Rowan Joffe (28 Weeks Later, The American) directed and screenplay written film, adapted from the novel by S.J. Watson, Nicole Kidman (Railway Man, Australia) is excellent as Christine, an amnesiac consulting a new neuroscientist Dr Nasch (a powerful Mark Strong, Kick Ass, Stardust) who encourages her to record snippets of information each day on a camera to play back as a tool to help her regain her memory. She keeps the fact that she is seeing Dr Nasch from her husband Ben (the enigmatic Colin Firth (Pride and Prejudice, Love Actually) as she does not know who to trust and everyone appears to be keeping things from her.
This tense mystery thriller has plenty of psychological twists and does an amazing job at pulling you in to Christine's world and going along with her for her journey of self-discovery. You, the viewer, trust no-one and like her, try to work out the piecemeal clues as to who has attacked and tried to kill her. Her dreams of the truth, when they come are terrifying and confusing and as they start to appear during her waking hours, you wait anxiously for the real terror to reveal itself.
When her old friend Claire (James McAvoy's wife Anne-Marie Duff, Nowhere Boy, Notes on a Scandal, who nails this touching role) reappears after disappearing from her life in mysterious circumstances, there is hope that not only can Christine begin to remember things, she can be helped.
The two male leads (Strong and Firth) keep you guessing throughout, one minute caring and the next hard to the point of cruelty and spark off wonderful chemistry with Kidman, leading you to draw more than one misleading conclusion before the film is over. With a compelling score and crisp imagery, this film feels reminiscent of Hitchcock which is no bad thing.
This marks the 2nd on-screen collaboration for Firth and Kidman, the first being Railway Man, and the film differs vastly from the book in its execution of Christine's 'memory diary' (in the book it is a journal and here the video camera) but it really works.
A compelling psychological thriller. 6.5/10
#BeforeIGoToSleep #NicoleKidman #ColinFirth #MarkStrong
No comments:
Post a Comment