"Remember Me", an unforgettably disastrous film

Remember Me

Sometimes reviewing a film shouldn't take long. In five words: "Remember Me" is a disaster. As a person who works with human rights daily, I defend that no one, with independence of his/her crimes, should be punished watching this. I have many arguments to justify my "thesis".

"Remember Me" fails in every category you can imagine. First and foremost, the script. From the very beginning when Tyler Hawkins (Robert Pattinson, also executive producer of the film) meets Ally (Lost' actress Emilie de Ravin) the movie is just a blatant collection of clichés and nonsense that results in an obvious and very serious problem of balance and condemns the characters to an erratic and incoherent behaviour. There are some one-liners that go directly to the "twilight zone" category. Here's my top three: 1.At a very fancy restaurant, where the couple have lunch with Tyler's father (Pierce Brosnan), said by Ally regarding her mother's death; 2. Ally again, at their first proper date, about why she orders ice-cream first; and 3. A very profound dialogue (Pattinson with that permanent appalled infinite-looking pose) between the two lovers that goes like this (Tyler): "I'm undecided". (Ally) “About what?".(Tyler) "Everything". Honestly, what the hell was (Will Fetters) the writer thinking? And it goes worse, much worse, at the end.

As a direct consequence of that, the acting is weak, with specially huge question marks on the starring couple: it is just the script or Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin are such bad actors? I incline myself for the first option, but seeing the "vampire" move from pose to pose is annoying (sorry Rob, you're not precisely James Dean) makes me doubt. It is not a problem of leading characters. Pierce Brosnan is a corporate-ceo caricature and even a very good actor like Chris Cooper looks pretty silly on his role.

Oh wait! Maybe it is not the script or/and the acting. Maybe is just the editing process of the film what fails, because you'll have the feeling, regularly, that scenes are brutally sequenced, disconnected. That makes the film rythm awkward and its development highly uncredible. Everything looks artificial, constructed, so there's zero emotional impact as a result. And considering the heavy subjects of this romantic drama, death, romance, family relations, bullying, divorce, disconnection with the world, and particularly the way it ends, that's an unforgivable mistake.

And finally, did I mention the end is bad? Sorry to insist, but it is. Atrociously bad. No matter what they say, it's an unnecessary twist. Worse, it's a tricky twist, one that wants to be compelling using a real tragedy.

My obvious recommendation, and taking advantage of director's Allen's Coulter ("The Sopranos", "Boardwalk Empire", "Hollywoodland") too evident message with this film, let's live the (precious) moment. Choose something else to do instead of watching this.

SCORE: 1,25/10

"The Ghost Writer", failed political thriller by Polanski

The Ghost Writer

An unknown writer is offered to write the memories of the former UK Prime Minister, just when he is accused of war crimes. Wow, for a while, it seems we are in front of a heavily loaded subject, miles away from the usual thriller territory. For a while.

Polanski starts "The Ghost Writer", based on the homonimus novel, with this promising subject and really suggestive atmosphere built around the place, the isolated island where Lang (Pierce Brosnan) lives and works with her wife and office staff, a sophisticated, high-class home that seems also a dungeon, where reclusion was also part of the goal. In that scenario, the ghost-writer (Ewan McGregor) has to re-write the unfinished memories of the ex-prime minister. But when the announcement from the International Criminal Court arrives announcing the investigation of the former politician, we enter into another dimension, another level. Unfortunately, the amazing potential of that premise steadily evolves into a more conventional thriller.

Because Polanski decides he is not interested in the political story anymore, just when we were more excited about how far he was willing to go in the obvious parallelisms with real former UK primer minister Tony Blair (how interesting, also necessary if you ask me, would have been seeing a fictional trial when the responsibles for war crimes in the name of the war against terrorism are judged), but what he offers us instead is a disappointing thriller, for several reasons.

The first one is that Ewan McGregor's character is really hard to believe. The whole issue (the plot) is so high-profile that is completely unbelievable than after 3 days of work he is able/allowed to get into the super-secret, deep meaning of the whole affair, even more so if his predecessor suspiciously died when he was doing these ghost-writing task. Besides, when his own life is on jeopardy, he keeps behaving in a surprisingly careless way, a struggling contradiction considering he is so meaningless in the grand scheme of things the plot has turned into. Many minor scenes (won't spoil anything), when something is revealed, a clue is founded, or some connection is discovered, are just failed attempts to let the movie flow, with poor and unrealistic results.And linked directly with that, is the second disappointment. A ridiculous, laughable, end.

Third one. I already said that Polanski decides the war crimes sub-plot is irrelevant, sadly, but the CIA sub-plot connected (google?, that's pathetic) with the personal relation taking place on the film (no spoiling again) is pretty weak, and again unbelievable, giving you the feeling the real reason of it was just for the sake of including a sexual encounter on it.

And fourth one.With so many misfires, the movie has little dynamism, and gets tiring. Overall, "The Ghost Writer" is not a total failure, I could even say that as a thriller you can forget about after watching, is a satisfaying entertainment. But after proposing so much with its initial argument, is a serious let down, with several moments on the verge to stupidity (close to his horrendous film "The Ninth Gate"). At least it compares well to the PM he is referring to. The expectations on Tony Blair's mandate were high, so was the level of disappointment after his shameful term ended.

SCORE: 4,25/10