Before I Go To Sleep

I'd not read the book that this film was based on, and it would have been interesting to see how the novelist managed to conceal some of the more incongruous elements of the story.  As it was, the film was very entertaining g, with a real shock coming from the two male leads who were very definitely cast against type.

Here are my notes:

Before I Go to Sleep

USA 2014                    92 minutes

Director:                      Rowan Joffe

Starring:                        Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong and Anne-Marie Duff

“...an enjoyable shaggy dog story with a twist that will leave you with the strange feeling that you've seen all this before, even if you can't quite remember where.”

 

Mark Kermode

Christine (Nicole Kidman) is a middle-aged woman who wakes each day with no memory of her life from her mid-20s onward, so every morning Ben (Colin Firth) has to tell her that he is her husband, she was in an accident, and as a result of this she is suffering from amnesia.  But one day while Ben is at work a call from Dr Nasch (Mark Strong) informs Christine about a camera on which she has been keeping a secret video diary.

The film is based on the recent bestselling novel by S J Watson, but the subject of amnesia has long been popular with film makers:  Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) is a classic Hollywood film while more recently in Memento (2000) Christopher Nolan tells the story of his amnesiac hero by interspersing black-and-white sequences that tell a chronological story with colour sequences in reverse chronological order (the DVD allows viewers to restructure the film so that they can see it with a conventional chronology). 

In his perceptive review of Before I Go to Sleep Mark Kermode also notes key similarities with the plot of Wolfgang Petersen’s Shattered, another film about an amnesiac:

“I don't know whether Joffe is familiar with Petersen's 1991 oddity but his film certainly seems to remember it well.”

Rowan Joffe is the son of director , best known for The Killing Fields (1984) and The Mission (1986), and the actress Jane Lapotaire.  After winning awards for his screen writing he directed his first film The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall for TV which won a BAFTA in 2009.  He followed this with his own adaptation of Brighton Rock (2011).  His other screenplay credits include 28 Weeks Later (2007) and the George Clooney vehicle The American (2010).

 Here's the trailer:

 

 

 

Analysing Film as Film

I guess I fall into the category of the numerous bloggers who write about film, but hopefully vering to the more thoughtful end.

This is a fascinating review article about Mark Kermode's new book:

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/art-books/film-as-film/#.UyCwiiePM24

It's definitely one to add to my reading list and I still have some book tokens left over from my birthday.

How to Write a Film Review

In an interview following his appointment as chief film critic for The Observer Mark outlines his approach:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/17/mark-kermode-film-critic-observer

I particularly like his description of the role of the critic:

For Kermode, a critic should first "accurately describe a film and then ascribe it to the right school of film, before mentioning its tangential connections to other films. Beyond that, your opinion is opinion and my feeling is that you should be honest about that. I don't think the reader has to agree with you and I don't think a critic is there to tell you what to see. They are there to contextualise, to describe, to be passionately honest and entertaining."

New Film Critic for The Observer

The soon to be legendary Mark Kermode is to take over as film critic for The Observer when the legendary Philip French retires:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/17/mark-kermode-film-critic-observer

Hooray!