by Robert Scocchi
| Published
Hugh Jackman may have recently brought Wolverine out of retirement with Last Year's Deadpool Wolverinebut when he's not wearing a yellow suit wrapped around an adamantium-filled skeleton, he's not too bad at this kind of action. 2021 Memory A prime example of Jackman taking the lead outside of Marvel is this techno-existential thriller about a detective who revisits his traumatic memories to uncover clues about the disappearance of the love of his life. Although Jackman's excellent performance is supported by the talent of Thandiwe Newton and Rebecca Ferguson, Memory Max doesn't quite stick the landing after it builds up, but the buildup and cinematography alone make this a film worth seeking out on Max if you're interested in seeing Jackman portray a cynical detective racing against the clock.
Memories machine
Memory Starts with Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) and Emily “Watts” Sanders (Thandewe Newton) who work in a repurposed interrogation facility that uses sensory deprivation as a means to allow their clients to revisit cherished memories from their past for a small fee. Offering a healthy amount of meta-commentary on how to sell nostalgia, Nick's novels serve as a vehicle for exposition and personal musings with just a hint of sarcasm as if he were a hard-boiled private eye from a 1930s pulp magazine.
While Nick has repeat clients who want to repeatedly relive their past rather than live in the present, as well as government contracts to use his memory machine to review suspicious memories in various cases, he barely does enough work to keep the lights on. Bored and simply going through the motions, Nick injects his subjects with a sleeping serum, places them in a water tank, and directs their musings with his voice while saving their memories on discs for his recordings.
Everything changes for Nick when he is about to close the store for the day, and May (Rebecca Ferguson) enters and asks him to let her undergo therapy so she can find her lost keys. Through a shaky timeline, we learn that Nick and May became romantically involved before she suddenly disappeared. Distraught and desperate, Nick repeatedly subjects himself to the memory machine until he can find clues that will help him locate May.
Romantic drama with a hint of crime
While May's disappearance is the primary conflict in… MemoryA new investigation is opened involving a drug dealer named St. Joe (Daniel Wu) and a corrupt cop named Cyrus Booth (Cliff Curtis), and a highly addictive substance known as PACA. Nick's primary goal is to reunite with May through the memory machine, but as he digs deeper into his memories, he learns that May's presence permeates the rest of his investigation. Not knowing whether May is leaving clues to signal for help, or sending him on a wild goose chase, Nick slowly unravels as he tries to understand his own memories and those of the suspects.
We have a start at home
Steer some serious beginning energy, Memory It has all the elements of a thought-provoking technology thriller, but it gets lost in the weeds in its third act. As Nick's obsession with May continues to consume his being, the line between his memories and his real life becomes blurred to the point of blurring the narrative. However, it's worth noting that the flashback scenes are stunning outtakes that tap into the nostalgia one feels while looking back fondly on better days, even if the good times themselves were just a lie we tell ourselves.
Memory It was a complete bomb at the box office at the time of its release, but it's a visually stunning film that tries to ask some serious questions about the past, the people we care about, and how our perception really depends on our current perspective and mind. state. In other words, if you dig deep into your past for clues, you'll likely find them whether they're real or not because you want to see them so badly.
Memory It's currently streaming on Max, and it's absolutely worth watching if you're okay with being let down by the third act after a significant amount of existential buildup.
