I am always fond of intellectual science-fiction and it was a slow Sunday, so I finally decided to check Rememory off my Netflix watchlist. This is the kind of movie that should have been on my radar back in 2017 but, for whatever reason, it wasn’t. While there is a sci-fi base to the film, it wasn’t at all what I expected.
We’re introduced to the story about the technological breakthrough and therapeutic applications of memory transcription, but almost immediately shown that there’s something darker going on beneath the polished surface. As the curtain is pulled back on that idea, the film becomes more murder-mystery than sci-fi but utilizes the memory-tech as an investigative tool.
The resulting plot is much more emotionally driven as several of the characters have psychological scarring on some level. It’s an interesting sophomore directorial effort from Mark Palanksy who co-wrote the screenplay with Mike Vukadinovich. It gets caught between the idea of memory as something concrete that can be used to help people and memory as malleable and abstract. As the “device” is used throughout the course of the film, memories are taken as fact in the course of the murder investigation. However, there’s a parallel angle about how memory and reality blurred together and caused significant problems for some of the test subjects. Those two ideas don’t play well together but the script does a nice job of unpacking the emotional baggage of its characters. It reminded me of a Black Mirror episode, specifically “The Entire History of You” that uses an implant to record everything the host sees and hears. That’s the kind of transcription ability the tech in this story has, but something about it just doesn’t quite add up.
Peter Dinklage is great, but his character foundation seems completely out of place. He’s an architectural model maker who has some compartmentalized memory he’s trying to unlock. That aspect of his character is tied into the history of the larger story. So, naturally, he’s the guy to suddenly turn private detective in order to solve the murder mystery at hand, right? The model-making approach was a nice alternative to the conventional bulletin-board style approach of visualizing detective work, but it seemed like his profession only existed to serve that purpose.
This was one of Anton Yelchin’s final films and he’s excellent, but not in the film nearly enough. His fiery performance as one of the memory device’s test subjects felt like it should have been a bigger piece of the puzzle. The primary supporting roles belong to the venerable Julia Ormond and Martin Donovan. Both of them were strong as well but it’s Ormond who has the more central turn in the narrative. She’s at the center of the murder mystery and there’s a group of people who all want access to her. The investigation drudges up past trauma but she plays the role with commendable stoicism.
I love a good murder-mystery but I was expecting more of a sci-fi-oriented story. It’s not about the implications of the technology really at all. Maybe a little about the side-effects of unproven tech but that’s not even close to the focal point. As I said, it reminded me of an episode of Black Mirror and that’s not a bad thing.
Recommendation: It’s an interesting take on the genre if you like murder mysteries, but it’s fairly light on the sci-fi.