By Robert Scucci
| Published
Hugh Jackman may have recently brought Wolverine out of retirement with last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine, but when he’s not donning a yellow suit wrapped around an adamantium-infused skeleton, he’s not so bad in the thriller genre. 2021’s Reminiscence is a prime example of Jackman taking the lead outside of Marvel in this existential tech-noir film about an investigator who revisits his painful memories to uncover clues about the disappearance of the love of his life. Though Jackman’s stellar performance is supported by the talent of Thandiwe Newton and Rebecca Ferguson, Reminiscence doesn’t quite stick the landing after its buildup, but the buildup and cinematography alone makes this film worth seeking out on Max if you’re interested in seeing Jackman portray a cynical detective racing the clock.
The Reminiscence Machine
Reminiscence begins with Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) and Emily “Watts” Sanders (Thandiwe Newton) operating out of a repurposed interrogation facility that utilizes sensory deprivation as a means to allow their clients to revisit cherished memories from their past for a nominal fee. Offering a healthy amount of meta commentary about how nostalgia sells, Nick’s narrations function as a vehicle for exposition and personal musings with just a hint of cynicism as if he were a hard-boiled private eye from a 1930s pulp magazine.
While Nick has recurring clients who want to repeatedly relive their past instead of living in the present, as well as state contracts to use his reminiscence machine to review suspect memories for various cases, he barely does enough business to keep the lights on. Bored and simply going through the motions, Nick injects his subjects with a sleep serum, places them in a water tank, and guides their meditations with his voice while saving their memories to disks for his records.
Everything changes for Nick when he’s about to close shop for the day, and Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) enters, pleading for him to let her undergo treatment so she could find her missing keys. Through a shaky timeline, we learn that Nick and Mae become romantically involved before she suddenly disappears. Distraught and despondent, Nick repeatedly subjects himself to the reminiscence machine so he can find clues that will help him locate Mae.
Romance With A Hint of Crime Drama
While Mae’s disappearance is the primary conflict in Reminiscence, a new investigation opens up involving a drug kingpin named Saint Joe (Daniel Wu), a corrupt cop named Cyrus Booth (Cliff Curtis), and a highly addictive substance known as baca. Nick’s primary objective is to reunite with Mae through the reminiscence machine, but as he digs deeper into the recesses of his own memories, he learns that Mae’s presence is peppered throughout the rest of his investigation. Not knowing whether Mae’s leaving clues to signal for help, or sending him on a wild goose chase, Nick slowly unravels as he tries to make sense of his own memories, and the memories of his suspects.
We Have Inception At Home
Channeling some serious Inception energy, Reminiscence has all the elements of a thought-provoking tech-thriller, but gets lost in the weeds by its third act. As Nick’s obsession with Mae continues to consume his being, the line between his memories and real life becomes blurred to the point of muddling the narration. Still, it’s worth mentioning that the flashback sequences are stunning vignettes that tap into the nostalgia one feels while looking back fondly at better days, even if the good times themselves may have only just been a lie that we tell ourselves.
Reminiscence was a total box office bomb at the time of its release, but it’s a visually stunning film that attempts to ask some serious questions about the past, the people we care about, and how our perception really depends on our point of view and current mental state. In other words, if you’re looking deep into your past for clues, odds are you’ll find them whether they’re real or not because you want to see them so badly.
Reminiscence is currently streaming on Max, and it’s totally worth a watch if you’re okay with a third-act letdown after a considerable amount of existential buildup.