BEFORE: Speaking of sleep, I had such grand plans for my vacation, I was going to get myself on something close to a normal sleeping schedule, so that when I came back, I could maybe start getting up a little earlier for work. Sure, my bosses have become accustomed to me not showing up before noon most days, but that doesn't make it right. I do tend to stay late, until every that needs doing is done, but that doesn't really make it right either. So after crossing over into the central time zone, where it's always one hour earlier, I found that if I got up at what my body felt was 10 am, it was really 9 am. (This is why I do so well when I go to San Diego, I just stay on the same sleeping schedule, and I'm three hours ahead of the game.)
That was a good start, so for the whole time I was in Texas and Louisiana, I tried to get up at 9 am, or even 8 am if we needed to check out of our hotel and get on the road to the next city. Then all I had to do was to get back to NYC and try to maintain that schedule - but the problem then was that on the last day, we had to check out of our hotel at 5 am and drive to the New Orleans airport to drop off the rental car and catch a 7 am flight. And the only way I'm going to be up at 5 am is if I don't go to sleep at all, so that's what I had to do. What is it about being on vacation that makes you so tired that when you get back, you feel even more tired than you did before you left?
Sure, I slept on the plane, and I crashed for three hours last Sunday afternoon when I finally made it to my bed at home, but after that, I went back on a vampire-like schedule, falling asleep just before the sun came up on some nights this week, then hitting work again at noon or later. Or worse, falling asleep in the middle of the movies "Ghost Story" and "The Others", then having to force myself awake at 6 am to finish the film, then force myself back to sleep for a few hours before work. I don't recommend this to anyone else.
So since I have just 10 more films to watch in November (after today's), I think I'll go on an alternating schedule and watch one movie every two days, at least for a while. This way I'm not rushing to write a review, rushing to start the next film, then relaxing in the middle of a movie and falling asleep again. This could also give me some more time to catch up on the week of TV I missed while on vacation (finally caught the first episode of "Genius" season 2 while on the plane, and yep, I fell asleep about 2/3 through) and maybe organize some comics, add comments to some of my many vacation photos, and maybe even catch up on some sleep, too. Yeah, that would be nice.
Nicole Kidman carries over from "The Others", into another thriller. I've still got time to clear the Kidman category, like I did with Samuel L. Jackson, before the end of the year. Kidman, Christopher Walden, then Jack Black, and that will take me very close to a Christmas movie.
THE PLOT: As a result of a traumatic accident in her past, a woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing from the last 14 years. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.
AFTER: If the idea behind this film sounds familiar, that might be because it's been used before in at least two other films - comedically in "50 First Dates" and dramatically in "Memento", which is one of my favorite films (even though I disagree with what is now the common interpretation of the meaning of that film's ending). "Memento" also pulled off the trick of putting the majority of its scenes in reverse chronological order, which normally I would HATE, but it's the rare case where messing with the time stream served a purpose, it put the viewers in the same position as the lead character, namely not knowing what had transpired before, therefore subverting cause and effect. Was it confusing? Sure, at first, but eventually I came to appreciate the film and I waived my usual hatred of non-linear storytelling - really, only "Memento" and "Pulp Fiction" get passes from me. OK, maybe "Cloud Atlas", what the hell.
Tonight's film is squarely in the "Memento" arena, but with a female lead - I'm going to go ahead and call it "She-Mento" before I find out that anyone else had that same idea. (We noticed so many tiny casinos at rest stops in Louisiana that I thought I was being clever by coining the term "gasino", only to find out online that someone already thought of that, and that's what many of them are really called...). Like "Memento" it has a lead character who is an unreliable narrator, who has no ability to form new memories, so therefore is vulnerable to being manipulated, and must find a way to retain information for longer than a day. In "Memento" this took the form of many post-it notes, and tattoos when important information was discovered. Christine, the central character in "Before I Go to Sleep" instead relies on a digital video-camera and records a new message for herself in secret every night, on the advice of her doctor.
Each morning she wakes up next to her husband, Ben, only that man is a stranger to her, at least until she goes into the bathroom and sees pictures of him with messages that say, "This is Ben, he is your husband." This assumes a lot, because if most people woke up next to a stranger, their first impulse might be to panic, or to start bludgeoning the stranger in their bed. And here's where my parade of NITPICK POINTS is going to begin, because how come he can go through the tedious routine of explaining Christine's life and condition to her every single damn day, but he can't bring himself to wake up 5 minutes earlier than her, so she won't panic?
Seriously, though, I appreciate that for every sick or injured person on this planet, there could be a spouse or partner with infinite patience, someone who might help them get dressed, or help them eat, or help them into their wheelchairs or whatever. Thousands of people in this world need a little extra help to get by, and hopefully there are just as many people with the patience to help them. I don't know if I could do it - I don't even know if I could accept that help if I needed it, I've got to think that some form of assisted living is a better option than putting a strain on one's marriage, but I also acknowledge that I thankfully know very little on this topic. The day I can't walk around, just sign me up for disability checks, put me in front of the TV with a remote, put Uber Eats and GrubHub on my phone, and I promise I won't look back. I'm kidding, I think. Sort of.
But Christine wants to get better, she wants to remember her husband as her husband, she wants to know everything that happened in the last 14 years, but then there are problems. The more she learns, the more it seems that she doesn't like what she finds out. (Trying very hard to avoid spoilers here, which isn't easy...). And this means spending time with the mysterious Dr. Nasch, who takes her to the location where she was found after her "accident". Then things start to not add up, like the things that her husband tells her don't match what the doctor tells her. Which story is right? Who's telling her the truth and who might be lying? And I think maybe I've already said too much.
Then, if her memories do start to come back to her, how reliable can they be? There's the possibility that if her old memories come back, they could get jumbled with new experiences that she's had in the recent past, so even if she starts to get well, she can't really trust herself. I think I'm going to be a little lenient with the judging tonight, because at least this movie tried to do something different, put a new twist on the amnesia thing. I'm not a screenwriter myself, but sometimes I bounce ideas around, and I've occasionally thought that if a character woke up each day and their life was different somehow, or even completely different, and their memories changed to reflect the new reality, how would they even know? Or if someone fell asleep and woke up in a different year of their own life, past or future, would they be able to tell? (This was sort of explored in "Slaughterhouse Five", but not to the degree I'm suggesting.).
There's something I overheard while we were on a tram, touring the Johnson Space Center in Houston, although I didn't catch the context. One man said to another, "Just because it's a bad idea, that doesn't mean we won't have a good time." I thought, "Wow, those are some words to live by..." and maybe that could be my new mantra for a while - I think it could be used to justify all sorts of things. Like if you don't think this is a solid premise for a film, just because it's a bad idea, that doesn't mean you won't have a good time. Still, I have to point out that film is largely a visual medium, and the process of someone just forgetting things doesn't easily lend itself to visual storytelling, there's nothing inherently exciting about the forgetting process, in fact it's quite tedious that she has to go through this routine every day of remembering things, getting the call from the doctor, watching the videos, etc.
NITPICK POINT: So, she forgets everything that happened during each day while she sleeps that night. What happens if she takes a nap? Does she then forget the events of the last few hours, or maybe half a day? This is why the conceit of "movie amnesia" just doesn't work, I think it's a bit like "movie hypnotism" - some screenwriters decided they need something to work a certain way for dramatic effect, without caring whether this is a thing that really exists, or works this way.
Also starring Colin Firth (last seen in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"), Mark Strong (ditto), Anne-Marie Duff (last seen in "Nowhere Boy"), Dean-Charles Chapman, Jing Lusi, Rosie MacPherson, Ben Crompton (last seen in "102 Dalmatians"), Adam Levy, Gabriel Strong, Flynn MacArthur, Hanna Blamires, Bern Collaco, Chris Cowlin, Laraine Dix, Llewella Gideon, Kevin Hudson, Steve Munroe, Nick Turner.
RATING: 6 out of 10 blows to the head
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