Wonderful, touching, deep, and so real...

Rating: 10/10 (20 March 2004)

The point of this movie is not a complex plot. If you want that, go to the Sci-Fi channel. This story is about the people, not about the technology. You might even consider this to be a "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again" story. It has been done a million times, and yet this is different, and very well done.
This story is about the love, and the loss of love, and the pain from that loss. And it is about the even greater pain of having that taken away from you, losing a part of who you are, not just losing the memory of a person.

And unlike so many other movies, the minor characters have a real depth - a history, and emotional entanglement in all of this. The doctor is a real person, and the technicians, the family, the receptionist, and they all have major character flaws that give them real depth. It feels real. I've met these people before - they are not cardboard characters, none of them. Most of them are actually kind of creepy, actually, but it is subtle.
This movie does not use the standard set of tricks to evoke emotion. It simply tells the story, and in a way that is suspenseful even though you know what is going to happen from the beginning of the movie. It can be a tear-jerker at times, yet it never feels forced.
I am in awe. This is science fiction of the highest calibre. The science does not get in the way of the story, yet is an integral part. It is also a love story of the highest caliber, not a chick-flick, not a guy-movie. Something for both. Very, very well done.
This is a great date movie.