Grade: 2.0/5.0
It is bittersweet to be called interesting or chic. The former marks a well of untapped potential, while the latter describes a project that at least attempts to explore itself by tossing a canary down a coal mine. In “Reminiscence,” however, the canary does not chirp for long.
In this heavily stylized — but never stylish — neo-noir, the world is underwater, not that we ever feel it. It dunks us in Miami, post-climate apocalypse, which is now entirely nocturnal to avoid the extreme heat. For comparison, try on “Blade Runner;” it engages with the circumstances of its apocalypse with far more grace and curiosity than the overbearing “Reminiscence.”
In place of orange skies and prowling cabs, we have risen seas and water taxis. Everywhere is Venice, except for rare parcels of dry land that the ruling class, dubbed “the barons,” snatched up on the cheap before the world was submerged. The barons anchor our central conflict, but it takes nearly forever for their role to unfold. When it does, the role emerges from writer-director Lisa Joy’s plot, which strings us along through broken hearts and conspiracies.
In summary, veteran Nick (Hugh Jackman) was an interrogator in a past climate war, using a machine called Reminiscence to resurface his subject’s memories. Now, he runs a business with another veteran (Thandiwe Newton), using Reminiscence to send his clients back to their happiest moments, or, in the case of our femme fatale Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), to help a woman find her lost keys. Naturally, Nick’s smitten by her the moment she walks in, and “Reminiscence” reveals that it’s most interested in using its cinematic language to follow his eyes down the small of her back.
Sex sells, but not this dingy rubbish. Mae disappears after wooing Nick, sending him on a yearslong hunt to find her that leads him through the society’s underbelly. Yet for a movie so interested in grime, “Reminiscence” is never gritty. The gushing blood found in the likes of “Taxi Driver” is toned down to multiple long wind-ups that cut away frames before the gunshot. These moments are more exploitative than tonal, patchwork to keep the pace intact when the story is revealed in fits and spurts to much less success and with less intrigue than Joy’s work on “Westworld.”
That’s largely attributable to the fizzless direction. “Reminiscence” is a drink gone flat and lukewarm, a mood Joy lets percolate. The world building, while visually together, dies in the script. Questions such as, “Is potable water scarce in this world?” invade your mind while the tap runs in an unnuanced sex scene dominated by an uninhibited score. The acting Joy demands is similarly bland: Be sad. Be happy. Raise the eyebrows, and now lower them. More side eye!
At that point, just give us the bullets. And “Reminiscence” does; the action scenes are the tidbits to look forward to. They’re home to the film’s pittance of style, but they’re inconsistent. On the high end is an elegantly choreographed shootout, filmed with a camera that, for once, does more than catalogue the expected beats. On the low end is an average brawl, complete with a chase through clothes lines and across rooftops.
The stylistic failings reinforce what “The Father” made clear: Less is, consistently, more. Florian Zeller made a trippy film with some cuts and redecorating. “Reminiscence” blew $68 million on elaborate set pieces without the imagination to lose us in its maze.
You may crane your head down the theater aisle, wondering if anyone else is as bored by the lack of spectacle. Seeing another vacant face would give a greater jolt of kinship and emotion, than what this beleaguered, gasping and patronizing film offers.
