I was actually misled by this film. Going in I thought I had heard that Jonathon Nolan (brother to famous director, Christopher) was a writer on this film, which got me very excited as Jonathon was a writer on The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Prestige and Interstellar. But in this he is a producer for his wife and fellow Westworld writer’s first film. Lisa Joy being so closely affliated to the Nolan film was no doubt a help in getting this film of the ground and a release as well as getting some of the talent onboard.

Reminiscence stars Hugh Jackman as Nick Bannister, a man who runs a business helping people relive their memories. When a client turned lover, Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) disappears for seemingly no reason he must look into the past to discover where and why she has gone.

Neo-Noir is one of my favourite genre’s out there, a term I heard a lot from my days at university. A modern Noir instantly makes you go to the likes of Blade Runner 2049, notoriously one of my favourite films and that’s always going to be a comparison to me. But Inception was the film that particularly comes to mind when people see the trailers, which is ironic given Jonathon Nolan’s involvement. Those comparisons are hard ones to live up to but there are certainly elements of both of those films, but perhaps the better comparison is the first Blade Runner, and not just because Jackman is monologuing.

The film feels like it would make a good book and I don’t mean that that in a bad way. The world building is solid and a lot of the world you see and how it is during the time the film is set is really interesting and something I’ve never particularly seen before so would like to see more of that.

As for the story itself, it might be set in a universe that’s unique but the story isn’t. It certainly has elements we have seen plenty of times before, in other crime/noir films but doesn’t do enough to capitalize on the uniqueness of the setting, aside from the one machine used for the memories, we have no other new technology in this universe. We have enough for machines to extract memories and play them on on thread, but nothing else. I think that’s a big thing the world is missing, something to make it feel more progressed more than the one thing involved in the plot.

Overall, I think I enjoyed Reminiscence, another refreshing film that is completely different to anything else out at the moment. The film definitely isn’t for everyone, its a slow burn but that will put off the majority of general movie going audiences.

What did you think of Reminiscence?

Unfortunately there are a lot of films I’m missing at the moment due to only being on at certain times that don’t fit with my shifts which is frustrating but I’ll always make time to watch the biggest stuff. We have Candyman coming up next week and Shang-Chi the week after, so be sure to follow on Instagram @floodersfilms and like on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest reviews!