Remember Me (2010)

I knew very little about Remember Me before watching it so the end came as a complete shock, despite the fact that in retrospect I can see there were clear clues to the final event throughout the film. Sometimes I'm attuned to these things, not this time.

Robert Pattinson plays Tyler Hawkins, a young New Yorker who is grieving for the loss of his brother.

Tyler doesn’t handle the grief very well. He’s rebellious. He drinks and smokes too much and generally has a bad attitude. He’s clearly got anger issues; the main cause of that anger being his father. He doesn’t explicitly say it, but we can see that he holds his father responsible for the death of his brother.

Through a twist of fate he meets Ally (Emilie de Ravin). And it is a twist of fate. In a city of 8 million people you have to wonder at the odds that they would meet in the way they do.

Ally has also been affected by tragedy, and their shared experience and grief helps bring them together.

At this point you may think this is just another soppy love story. In a way it is, but I found this movie deeply affecting. The characters are engaging. The blossoming relationship between Tyler and Ally is well handled.

The relationship between Tyler and his father, played by Pierce Brosnan, is probably the most interesting aspect of the film. Pierce Brosnan puts in a great performance, in spite of the slightly dodgy caricature New Jersey accent.

The plot is like a Shakespearean tragedy. Maybe a bit overdone. After the coincidences that led to Tyler and Ally meeting, we are expected to suspend disbelief again for another set of coincidences that leads to the climactic finale. In an inferior film this would be a problem. In the case of Remember Me I wasn’t bothered by it at all. It was a fitting ending to a powerful and thought-provoking film.