Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan collaborated again to produce the science fiction film, Reminiscence , which also marked Joy's feature-length directing debut. With a story script written by Joy, Reminiscence is set in a future story where two veterans, Nick Bannister ( Hugh Jackman ) and Emily Sanders ( Thandiwe Newton)), opened a business that utilizes the latest technology to be able to revive certain memories for those who want it. This technology is then used by a nightclub singer, Mae ( Rebecca Ferguson ), to be able to recall where the keys are. Not only did Mae get her keys back, she also managed to get Nick Bannister's attention. Romance soon grew between the two. However, after a while of being in a relationship, Mae left Nick Bannister and disappeared without a trace.
In addition to presenting appearances from Newton and Angela Sarafyan who also played a role in the Westworld series , viewers of the nine Primetime Emmy Awards winning series can clearly feel the similarities in the futuristic themes presented in the storyline of Reminiscence.. The timeline of this film's storytelling uses the background of the storytelling location in the United States of America in the future where climate change has caused most of the land to sink and the increase in extreme temperatures during the day makes humans choose to be active at night and rest during the day. Joy continued to develop the concept of the story by telling how chaotic environmental conditions caused social inequality to widen which was then used by a group of people to expand and perpetuate their power. Ambitious.
However, as a presentation of stories that explain the mysteries of human memory, Reminiscence more often feels able to evoke memories of the impressions of futuristic films with other storylines better than being able to outline memories of deeper impressions from the fabric of the film's own story. With themes and conflicts that impress as a blend of themes and conflicts previously presented in films such as Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990), Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001), Minority Report ( Steven Spielberg, 2002), to Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010),Reminiscence often only shows the upper layers of the conflict of the story without ever being able to really dive into it in more depth. It's not surprising that many of the story plots feel bland and just float away.
Joy herself can actually tell the story of the search that Nick Bannister's character is doing for Mae's character. Although initially the storytelling elements were more focused on a touch of romance, Joy slowly began to open each layer of the film's story which also opened up space for the presence of a number of new characters and conflicts with the color of mystery storytelling spiced with a number of action scenes. Enough to give a boost to the quality of the film's overall storytelling, but never really able to appear complete or satisfying because, again, Joy's storytelling emphasizes the presence of ambitious story ideas rather than the development that can make these ideas articulate. well. Reminiscencethen ends up as a presentation that looks majestic, but is filled with a lot of empty space that makes it easy to forget about it.
Luckily, Joy was able to fill her film with a classy production quality and a line-up for the acting department that has satisfactory performance capabilities. Assisted by a good visual arrangement, the pictures by cinematographer Paul Cameron managed to translate the picture of a world full of chaos in the future with convincing. Jackman, Newton, and Ferguson clearly play a crucial role in the existence of an emotional touch in the characters they bring to life. Unfortunately, apart from the character of Nick Bannister, played by Jackman, Joy's script does not provide a better story space for the other supporting characters. Appearances from Marina de Tavira and Daniel Wu also contributed to providing solid support for the performance quality of the film's acting department.
