BEFORE: An obvious follow-up to last night's film, I think, since we're dealing with a woman losing her memory, a man who struggles to get her to remember their relationship, and Rachel McAdams carries over. It's funny, I passed on both movies last February, but when the time came to plan the romance chain this year, both were available on cable and it somehow seemed like a better fit this year.
THE PLOT: A car accident puts Paige in a coma, and when she wakes up with severe memory loss, her husband Leo works to win her heart again.
AFTER: More similarities - the wife's parents who are opposed to the relationship, and there are other suitors available for both members of the couple, so the relationship has to triumph over many difficult challenges. Oh, and the wife has an art studio in both films, that's a pretty big coinky-dink.
We're told at the end of the film that this is based on the story of a real couple, though I bet they didn't look like A-List movie stars. I think you have to be careful with this sort of thing - though "Law & Order" has been running a disclaimer for years that any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental, yet they promote the show's plot as being "ripped from the headlines". Well, which is it? You can't have it both ways...
But I think having a character who cannot remember the recent past sort of puts this one a bit close to "Memento" territory, perhaps - where one character cannot remember his or her past, but everyone else can. So they try to piece together bits of their past to figure out a course of action, but as such they are subject to being manipulated by other people, or perhaps faulty information.
In this case the husband is just trying to get his wife back to where she was before the accident, but her parents also see this as a chance to set their daughter back on her old track, which includes law school and living with them, and NOT her new husband. It's a little strange that he married her and never met her parents before, but this is easily explained once you learn that she had severed all ties with them.
She does remember her old life, and her old boyfriend, so that sets up a love triangle similar to the one seen last night - should she choose the rich cad or the working-class stud? He has to work extra hard to re-romance his own wife, and realize that even if they start over, they may never get back on the same page again. Again I approve of the depiction of a relationship as something that requires effort, which it should be even for people without memory problems.
However, I can't help but feel a little manipulated by a film depicting a medical condition that seems designed to hit particular story beats. And calling a restaurant "Cafe Mnemonic" seems like too much of a knowing wink to the audience, since a mnemonic device is a word or phrase that helps you remember something. I get it, thanks.
Also starring Channing Tatum (last seen in "21 Jump Street"), Sam Neill (last seen in "The Horse Whisperer"), Jessica Lange (last seen in "All That Jazz"), Wendy Crewson, Scott Speedman (last seen in "Blue Valentine").
RATING: 5 out of 10 soundboards
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