Remember Me

For those of us who have managed to avoid the world-wide phenomenon that is Twilight, Robert Pattinson, or “R-Pattz” as he is known among his fans, just seems to be a bewildered British kid in the middle of one of the biggest franchises of the decade. With Remember Me, after How to Be (2008) and Little Ashes (2009), he has made another obligatory small-scale film to get away from the vampire hype and prove to everyone that he can act outside the realm of the undead.

His Twilight co-stars – Kristen Stewart and Anna Kendrick – have already made steps in this direction, the former starring in quirky ‘80s nostalgia rom-com Adventureland, and the latter being Oscar-nominated for her turn opposite George Clooney in Up in the Air. Both were widely praised for their respective performances, so how does Pattison compare?

Well for a start, not only does he take the lead role in Remember Me, but he is also an Executive Producer, proof that he’s keen to dip his toes into other areas of film production. And as a start it’s not bad. The film follows two college students in New York City, with similarly tragic events in their pasts, who negotiate young love, growing up, and parents that just don’t understand. So far, so predictable.

The film opens with a young girl witnessing her mother’s murder on a train station platform. Skip forward ten years, and that girl, Ally (Emilie de Ravin), is all grown up and is studying at college while living at home with the traditional over-protective father (Chris Cooper). Elsewhere in the city, intelligent yet troubled youth Tyler Hawkins (Pattinson) gets into fights, butts heads with his business-executive father (Pierce Brosnan), but works in a bookstore and writes poetry in his spare time. As Ally says, “I’ve seen this scene a hundred times.”

One night Tyler gets into a fight and is arrested by a police officer who turns out to be Ally’s father. Tyler’s wise-cracking sidekick/best friend spots Ally at college and suggests Tyler gets to know her in order to get into her dad’s good books. As you can imagine, this cynical suggestion soon turns into full-on love. And that’s the problem with this film – the characters and situations are just too clichéd. Pierce Brosnan is overly nasty as Tyler’s distant father; Ally is the kind of kooky girl that only ever seems to exist in films, with ‘endearing’ quirks such as eating dessert first just in case they get “hit by an asteroid”. There’s also a bit too much angst to fit in one film – consequently Ally’s troubled relationship with her dad seems to escalate from zero to 60 in about three scenes, without being allowed much time to develop satisfactorily.

For the most part the two leads do a pretty good job, but it helps that they are supported by some established talent, such as Brosnan and the always fantastic Cooper. There is some stilted delivery in certain scenes between the two leads, but de Ravin should continue to gain notice after this assured performance as Ally, and on this evidence Pattinson will have a future in dramatic roles waiting for him once he’s left the vampires behind. But it is Tate Ellington, as Tyler’s best friend Aidan, who gets all the best lines, negotiating as he does through Tyler’s “nihilistic bullshit”. And even though it’s cruel to pick on the youngest member of the cast, Ruby Jerins as Tyler’s younger sister Caroline is just a little too annoying and pretentious.

Overall the film is a competent drama about two young people in love trying to find their place in the world... until the ending. Without wanting to give anything away, suffice to say that it comes out of nowhere, and is so jarring that it colours your view of the entire film, which is a shame because the film has been working so hard up until that point to earn your respect. The ending is unnecessary and will make you either angry, disturbed, or both. But if you can get past that, then it’s a step in the right direction for the young cast in guiding their future careers.

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