Review: Before I Go to Sleep

Year: 2014
Director: Rowan Joffee
Screenplay: Rowan Joffee
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Mark Strong, Colin Firth

Synopsis is here

Before I go to sleep is the type of pot boiler that you saw often in the 90’s. Usually late at night on terrestrial television. The film gets top marks for being thematically relevant, but its execution, is nothing to write home about.

Based on a popular bestselling 2011 novel, Before I Go to Sleep is another entry into “amnesia films”. Like Memento (2000), the film has a central character, whose ailment is so acute, it allows those around them to insidiously manipulate their fragile situation. When done well, you get Memento; an acidic thriller that is hard to shake off to this day. Before I go to sleep is a more neutered and neutral thriller. It’s as long as they come, but it’s so trim, there’s little to give it character. The film is smooth enough in its craft, but it's sanded down in such a way that there's no rough edges to make it stand out. Joffee makes a simple, moderate movie that does little to offend, however, after predicting the film's outcome in the first ten minutes, there wasn't much else to make me want to hang around. I stayed, however, because I’m not Rex Reed.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Before I Go to Sleep. Nicole Kidman does the cracked porcelain doll thing well. Mark Strong and Colin Firth are cast for clear, obvious reasons and both play to their strengths. The film's most interesting element is how the texts could be considered within the feminist argument. Here we have a fractured and damaged woman whose world is controlled and manipulated by the men she knows. The incident which brought about her amnesia, as well as the amnesia itself, creates an interesting commentary on how abused women are viewed, and how the trauma affects the victim’s psyche. Kidman’s line of “I wish I wasn't scared all the time” is an all too knowing remark.

This said, the film's overall execution makes little waves. Before I go to sleep, may perhaps be a more interesting book, with the film's streamlined execution, doing little to make us grasp hold of its characters. While the storytelling allows the viewer to stay one step ahead of the film. Not the place you need to be with a feature like this.

The film trundles along, with Kidman trembling nervously through the film's intentionally drab blue/ gray cinematography and Hitchcockian conceits. Yet when comparing this to films of last year, which gave us ludicrous, stylised, yet highly entertaining thrillers such as Trance, Side Effects and Stoker, this slightly dour, workman-like effort may find itself as fodder for bleary eyed insomniacs more than anything else.

Review: Trance

Year: 2013
Director: Danny Boyle 
Screenplay: Joe Ahearne and John Hodge
Starring: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel

Synopsis is here

For some reason, it has been decided that March is the perfect time for psychological thrillers. Stoker and Side Effects had both Park Chan-wook and Steven Soderbergh embrace the pulpy mechanics of the genre respectively. Now fresh off his Olympic duties, Danny Boyle has decided to entrance viewers with a contorted tale which properly had writers wondering if they can use the term "Hitchcockian" again. 

While Trance's plot is preposterous in a way that may have Brian De Palma question it's third act mechanics,  the energy and pace Boyle infuses with the film allows one to bypass some of the more questionable areas of the narrative. However, considering the film is based around the questionable matter of hypnosis. Trance's screenplay is quite detailed on the matter, noting aspects that many hypnotists take to heart. Like so many of Boyle's films, Trance rolls at such a speed that you can take much of it at face value. Probably best. 

McAvoy finds himself in more formidable territory than I last saw him (Welcome to the Punch) nailing many scenes with the right balance of charm for his character. Cassel picks up a role that he could do with both hands tied around his back, but it's good to see a Euro antagonist done well (Die Hard 5, I'm looking at you). Rosario Dawson brings up the rear with a sexy but telling performance. She's more believable as a hypnotherapist than Catherine Zeta Jones being a psychiatrist, however from the moment Dawson enters the fray, we know what position she'll be in at the end of the film.

Still the film doesn't slip too much and Boyle has fun with the film visually. At one point we see orange lit motorways mimicking synapses of the brain while the bold colour scheme of the film does well to show up the look of recent British fare. 

Like most thrillers of its ilk, Trance pretends it's about one thing before revealing it's actually about something else. Some of the film’s final revelations manage to strangely uplifting considering the events that take place with the characters involved. Much like Side Effects, the film is not at all scared to play with our loyalties and alliances to characters. After further thought, Trance didn't turn my head as much as Trainspotting or Sunshine did, but it shows itself to be a fun little exercise for everyone involved.