Remember Me Everything but Memorable
Payton Shiver
March 30, 2010
Filed under A & E
Harry Potter buffs remember him as the heartthrob Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff. Most younger tween girls swoon over him as the irresistible Edward Cullen. Either way, Robert Pattinson is vividly remembered.
In his newest Summit Entertainment film, Remember Me, Pattinson plays Tyler, a troubled twenty-one year old in New York City struggling to find his path to define himself, and make a memorable impression on the world around him. After the cliche ending of this Allan Coulter film, I was trying anything and everything to forget this movie.
The scenes were choppy and did not flow well. Pattinson acted too much like his awkward Edward Cullen character during kissing and love scenes with co-star Emilie de Ravin, who plays the character Ally. Last but most certainly not least, I think my younger twelve-year-old sister was the only one in the theater who was not aware of the ending well before it happened. Yes, I’m going to give away the ending in the last paragraph, so click the little red ‘x’ button in the corner if you really want to see this movie and have not. (SPOILER ALERT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)
Like an orchestra with different instruments flows through musical counts, a movie must flow through different scenes with little effort and with little confusion to the viewer. Remember Me was more like the lake during a wind advisory than a concert at The Julliard School.
The movie starts with a subscript of “1991″ in the bottom with a woman and child in the subway. The mother is robbed and shot and the poor traumatized girl is screaming for a solid four minutes. The next scene is Tyler lying in bed with a random girl, answering a phone call, then suddenly the scene shifts to a type of rememberance day at a tombstone. The audience is not told who this is or why the family is there. When Tyler gets in an argument with his father at a family lunch over the father’s negligence of Tyler’s younger eleven-year-old sister, we become aware of the intensely strained relationship between the father and son. Once again the scene unnaturally shifts to Tyler’s alcoholic roommate and his begging for Tyler to go out for a drink. I think this is plenty enough examples for anyone to completely understand not one thing that is going on in this movie so far.
The attraction between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen is intense and strained. They are not allowed to be to fierce with each other in their love for fear of Edward squashing Bella to her death. Oh wait, that’s the wrong movie. Pattinson obviously forgets he is not Edward during these love scenes. The first kiss Tyler and Ally share is like a mirror image of Edward and Bella. Much more awkward than a thirteen year old’s first lip lock, and much more disturbing than a parental kiss, this scene looks nothing like a kiss at all. Tyler looks at Ally like she’s edible, and Ally looks completely desperate for Tyler’s lips. Robert Pattinson needs to remember he is an actor, not really a vampire.
The movie is introduced with a child and her mother in 1991. This child is actually Ally and her mother was the murdered woman. When the movie opened up stating it was “ten years later,” anyone with a basic knowledge of math automatically knew it was 2001. Hmm, let’s see… What do 99% of all Americans associate with 2001? September 11th. I will admit, I was the only one who made that “ugh” sound of annoyance in the theater, and my sister did look at me like I was dumb, but really? If you did not see that one coming, then stick with Disney or Bella and Edward’s saga. At least everyone is aware of those endings: “happily ever after.” Duh.
The end begins with Tyler and his father agreeing to meet and speak on good terms with each other at the father’s place of work: The Twin Towers. Tyler’s father calls to tell him he will be a little late because he is taking his daughter to school, bringing a smile to Tyler’s face as he walks down Wall Street. The scene cuts to Tyler’s sister’s classroom, where the teacher writes the date on the board: September 11, 2001. The next scene choppily cuts to Tyler in his father’s office looking out the window of the Tower in an upper floor. The scene following is of Ally, Tyler’s roommate, and his family looking at ashes falling in New York City.
The message of the movie was cute and cliche: get all of your affairs in order and make sure you are living your life the way you want before something tragic happens. The cinematography left me with a headache and Robert Pattinson’s performance had me crying out for Cedric Diggory. Remember Me is a movie far from worth remembering.
Umm okay you need to quit dising this movie I didn’t think of Edward one time and your just a hater did you even say anything nice about it? Everyone i know was shocked by the ending you read into it too much if you saw it coming.
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That’s your opinion, however, in order to carry out my job in the correct and most esteemed of ways, I have to watch each movie I review with meticulous care. I apologize for being an American and having the math skills necessary to add ten years to 1991 to realize that in the year of 2001 in New York City, we were put under brutal attack. For a writer or journalist to be competent and skilled at their job, they must look into their subjects much more closely than a normal moviegoer or entertainment junkie.
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