Thomas Storai 
Lisa Joy’s Reminiscence is a captivating movie with complex characters and an amazing cast! This movie is visually stunning.
Lisa Joy is making her feature film debut as a director and writer with Reminiscence. With her series Westworld which she co-created with her husband Jonathan Nolan, she has proven to be a skilled and creative writer. So how is her movie holding up?
STORY
First off, Reminiscence is not for everyone. Just like Westworld, it’s for a niche audience. Don’t expect brainless action, on the contrary, it’s the type of movie that makes you think. That’s what I love so much about Westworld, it’s so complex. I was eagerly waiting for Lisa Joy’s next work. And I’ve got to say I am not disappointed, not at all. It’s exactly what I expected from her. Reminiscence is a captivating movie with complex characters.
The story is set in future Miami which is quite different from how it is today. It has been affected by climate change – the sea levels have risen and so have the temperatures. So people mostly work at night. The rich live safely away from the flooded cities. When you think about it, it’s not far off from what our planet will be if we continue to do nothing about climate change. We’ve already been witnessing higher temperatures this Summer which lead to huge wildfires across the world. I do hope this movie will make some people think about climate change. As someone who lives on the coast, I don’t want my future to be that of future Miami.
DYSTOPIAN FUTURE
Joy has kept her style from Westworld – neo-noir near-future sci-fi with a bit of romance. It’s genres that go so well together, at least Lisa Joy knows how to make it work. It allows her to have a more direct approach to our world. The story is so compelling. It starts as a love story between Nick and Mae. But when Mae disappears Nick slowly drifts away reliving his memories of Mae again and again. As he starts looking for her it plays out as a detective story. It comes with some great twists!
CHARACTERS
It also features complex characters. Nick is a very interesting character because he is consumed by the past, which prevents him from going forward. There’s also Watts who has a problem with going forward. It’s different from Nick because she has a family to which she could go, but she chooses to stay with him and drown in alcohol. How the story of these two characters plays out is fascinating. Watts is the antithesis of Nick.
CAST
To play complex characters like them, you need a talented cast. And Lisa Joy has gathered an amazing cast with Hugh Jackman, Thandie Newton, and Rebecca Ferguson. Hugh Jackman delivers a nuanced performance. He does a great job at portraying this broken man. Rebecca Ferguson has a lot of layers with her character and plays her beautifully. As for Newton, I always love seeing her in movies or series, she’s an amazing actress! For fans of Westworld, you’ll recognize another actress from that series here. Plus as a fan of Nolan, I was quite happy to see an actor of Person of Interest appearing in Reminiscence as well!
VISUALS
This movie is visually stunning. Fantastic work has been done with the cinematography. It has the aesthetic you would expect from a neo-noir movie. Visually, one of my favorite scenes is the one with the train on the sea – it’s incredible!
SOUNDTRACK
Ramin Djawadi composed the score for this movie. It’s excellent. I have never been disappointed by his work. The biggest surprise from the soundtrack though is Ferguson’s talent for singing. She didn’t sing her character’s song in The Greatest Showman but here she does the singing. And it’s pretty good! The end-credits song ‘Save My Love’ by Lonr. and Amber Mark is a nice one. I had started listening to it even before seeing the movie!
VERDICT
Reminiscence is a captivating movie with complex characters and an amazing cast!
Reminiscence is distributed by Warner Bros. and is available on HBO Max in the United States (for one month) and in cinemas.
Collectables Editor at Future Of The Force.
Star Wars and Marvel specialist, anime expert
