Remember Me

Allen Coulter – 2010 – USA

As the great comic Artie Lange would say, “Waaa, I’m troubled, waaa!”  I think critic Lisa Schwarzbaum’s line from her review sums up Remember Me best in calling it a “shameless contraption of ridiculously sad things befalling attractive people."  This is the kind of movie I normally despise and wouldn’t bother with, so I was unpleasantly unsurprised to find that I despised it.  I did give it a fair chance, though, which is why its dumbness is all the more indefensible.  Matinee idol Robert Pattinson stalks the film like Holden Caulfield; terribly angst-ridden because his dad isn’t nice.  Dad Pierce Brosnan is the CEO of a big company; that’s the easiest way to convey that he isn’t nice without actually having to give his character any depth.  Pattinson's character isn’t a dependent teenager, though; he’s in his 20s, lives in a cool apartment in New York City, has friends, a cute girlfriend, attends NYU when he feels like it, works in a book shop when he feels like it, and has a few family members who love him.  Also he looks exactly like Robert Pattinson; why he can’t just enjoy his life remains a mystery.  In order to justify all his indignation and pouting, the movie starts throwing one calculated tragedy after another in his path, culminating in one of the most preposterous and pointless twist endings I’ve ever seen.  For absolutely no other reason than to get an easy gasp from the audience, Pattinson just happens to be in the World Trade Center on… dun dun dun… September 11, 2001!  It’s a truly lazy and tactless gimmick that demands tears without earning them.  The writer and director knew the material was weak and that the audience would feel nothing but mild annoyance if they didn’t somehow turn the whiny complaints of a few privileged characters into an epic tragedy we can’t dare criticize.  (To see Pattinson similarly depressed in a far less pretentious movie, check out How to Be.)