Reminiscence (2021 film)

Reminiscence (2021 film)
Reminiscence is a 2021 American neo-noir science fiction thriller film written, directed and produced by Lisa Joy in her feature directorial debut. Starring Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, Cliff Curtis, Marina de Tavira and Daniel Wu, it follows a man who uses a machine that can see people's memories to try to find his missing love. Joy co-produced with her husband and creative partner Jonathan Nolan.
It was released in the US by Warner Bros. Pictures on August 20, 2021, with a month-long simultaneous release on the ad-free tier of the HBO Max streaming service. It received mixed reviews, with critics praising its narrative ambition but comparing it unfavourably to similarly themed works like The Maltese Falcon and Inception. It was a box office bomb, grossing $16 million worldwide against a $54 million budget.
Plot
In the near future, climate change has caused the seas to rise and flood Miami. Extreme daytime temperatures force most of the population to live at night.
Nick Bannister and his friend Watts operate a business that allows people to relive memories. One day, a walk-in client, Mae, asks for their help finding her missing keys. Nick is instantly attracted to her; observing her memories of that evening, he learns she is a nightclub singer and feels a connection with her when she sings his favorite song, "Where or When". They begin a relationship, although Watts distrusts her.
Months later, Mae disappears without a word. Desperate to find her, Nick spends hours repeatedly reliving his memories of their relationship, a dangerous practice that could forever trap him in the memories.
Prosecutor Avery Castillo hires Nick and Watts to retrieve memories from a comatose suspect who worked for a New Orleans drug kingpin named Saint Joe. In the memories, Nick sees that Mae was Saint Joe's mistress and became addicted to baca, a highly addictive narcotic. The memories also reveal that Mae stole Saint Joe's stash of baca before fleeing town. Nick is devastated to learn that she was an addict, something that Watts already knew.
Nick travels to New Orleans and confronts Saint Joe, who says he has heard nothing from Mae since she left him. Saint Joe has his men try to drown Nick, but Watts rescues him and kills Saint Joe and his crew. Back in Miami, Nick has Watts relive her last encounter with Mae, and discovers Mae broke into the vault where they store recordings of their clients' memories. They discover Mae stole recordings of Elsa Carine, a client who repeatedly relived her trysts with an older, wealthy lover. Nick recognizes his voice as that of Walter Sylvan, a wealthy "land baron" who has recently died.
Investigating, Nick learns that Elsa was recently murdered and her young son was kidnapped by a woman who matches Mae's description. While searching for Mae, Nick is attacked by Cyrus Boothe, a former henchman of Saint Joe. Realizing that Elsa's son was likely the child of Walter Sylvan and thus a potential heir to his fortune, Nick confronts Sylvan's widow, Tamara, a former client whose mind has been damaged by excessive memory visitation. In a moment of lucidity, Tamara points Nick to a place where Boothe and Mae could be hiding. Nick and Boothe fight, with Boothe almost drowning before Nick can subdue him. Nick takes Boothe back to his office and places him in the machine to view his memories.
Boothe's memories reveal that the basis of Mae's relationship with Nick was a lie: After Boothe enlisted her in a plan to con Nick, she researched Nick to learn how to seduce him and staged the loss of her keys. But the memories also show that Mae came to genuinely love Nick. When Boothe murdered Elsa, Mae took Elsa's son and fled. Later, Boothe found Mae and tried to force her to reveal the child's location.
Nick watches the memory as Mae delivers a speech to Boothe, which is actually meant for him. She indirectly reveals the location of Elsa's son and professes her love for Nick. Then, seeing only one way out of her situation, she takes a lethal dose of baca and jumps off a balcony to her death.
Devastated, Nick forces Boothe to relive his worst memory: When Saint Joe's men burned his face as punishment for skimming profits. He confronts Sylvan's legitimate son Sebastian, who hired Boothe to eliminate Elsa and his half-brother to protect his inheritance. Sebastian almost commits suicide, but changes his mind and is arrested.
Nick confesses to Watts that he intentionally "burned" Boothe's memories by making him relive them over and over, a major crime. He is convicted and allowed to serve his sentence using his machine to relive his time with Mae, which is implied to be the rest of his life. In his memory, Nick recounts to Mae a shortened version of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, ending with the lovers reunited and happy, before the story's usual conclusion.
Cast
Production
In 2013, Lisa Joy's screenplay for the film ended up on The Black List, an annual survey of the most popular unproduced screenplays. According to the survey, which polled over 250 film executives, her screenplay received 20 votes for "best" screenplay. In January 2019, it was announced that Joy would make her directorial debut with the film, which would star Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson. In March 2019, it was reported that Warner Bros. had bought distribution rights to the film. In August, Thandiwe Newton joined the cast. Daniel Wu, Angela Sarafyan, Natalie Martinez, Marina de Tavira and Cliff Curtis joined in October. Filming began on October 21, 2019 in New Orleans and Miami. In August 2020, Newton's daughter Nico Parker was also revealed to be in the cast.
Release
Reminiscence was released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States on August 20, 2021. It premiered at BFI IMAX on August 11, 2021. As part of its plans for all of its 2021 titles, Warner Bros. simultaneously streamed it on the HBO Max service in the United States for one month, after which it was removed until the normal home media release schedule period. According to Samba TV, an estimated 842,000 households streamed it over its first three days, and during the month it was seen in over 2 million US households. It was re-added to HBO Max on January 29, 2022.
Reminiscence was originally scheduled to be released on April 16, 2021, before the slot was replaced by Mortal Kombat and the former film was left undated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was later rescheduled for theatrical release in the US on September 3, 2021, and internationally on August 25, 2021. The US date was then moved to August 27 to avoid competition with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, then again to August 20.
Reception
Box office
Reminiscence grossed $3.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $12.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $16.4 million. Variety estimated that it needed to gross around $110 million to break even.
In the US and Canada, it was released alongside PAW Patrol: The Movie, The Protégé, The Night House, and the limited release of Flag Day, and was projected to gross around $3 million from 3,184 theaters on its opening weekend. It made $675,000 on its first day and went on to debut to $2 million, finishing ninth at the box office—the all-time worst opening by a film playing in over 3,000 theaters, passing The Rhythm Sections $2.7 million debut in January 2020. It fell 59% in its second weekend to $792,408.
Critical response
Writing for Variety, Owen Gleiberman called the film "a perfectly calibrated two-hour mirage of things we've seen before" and said that, "it's very Blade Runner: The Streaming Series, with maybe a stray hint of The Godfather. Outside, the flooded Miami landscape, with buildings and byways still visible, evokes a kind of Waterworld Lite crossed with a Hunger Games sequel." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, and wrote "It's The Maltese Falcon meets Inception somewhere in the Vanilla Sky on the way to Chinatown in the inventive and ambitious but wildly convoluted and ultimately disappointing sci-fi noir Reminiscence, which careens this way and that, and this way and that, before running off the rails."
Writing for The Playlist, Nick Allen gave the film a B+, calling it a "gem" that was "packed with intellectual and emotional thrills." He praised Jackman and Ferguson's performances, noting that Ferguson had been "ramping up for a role just like this."
See also
List of directorial debuts
References
External links
2021 science fiction films
2021 thriller films
2021 films
2021 directorial debut films
2020s science fiction thriller films
American neo-noir films
American science fiction thriller films
FilmNation Entertainment films
Films about memory
Films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic
Films produced by Michael De Luca
Films set in the future
Films set in Miami
Films set in New Orleans
Films shot in Miami
IMAX films
Films shot in New Orleans
HBO Max films
Warner Bros. films
Works by Lisa Joy
Climate change films
2020s English-language films
2020s American films
English-language science fiction thriller films