Reminiscence Parent Guide

While operating a memory-retrieval service in the flooded ruins of Miami, Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) met a woman who changed his life. Although Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) only came in to find her house keys, she and Nick found a whirlwind romance which ended abruptly with Mae’s disappearance. Since she left, Nick has spent all his time reliving his memories of their time together, trying to find clues as to her current whereabouts. But living in the past has its own hazards, and Nick’s going to have to do some investigating in the present to find the love of his life.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it is frequently overwrought. The dialogue ranges between perfectly acceptable to something perhaps best recognizable from melodramatic high school love letters. Now, I realize that neo-noir dialogue can get a little florid, but it tends to distract from the story. It’s hard to be invested when I’m cringing and trying to rewrite the dialogue in my head.

That isn’t the only issue with Reminiscence, but it is the largest one. The film is fairly derivative, taking obvious inspiration from other science fiction movies, but I actually don’t mind that. I think the filmmakers managed to put an interesting enough aesthetic on top of those stories to make the movie fun in spite of its other flaws.

Parents have surprisingly little to worry about here. The violence is brief and not particularly graphic, and the profanity is not terribly explicit either – and pleasantly free of sexual expletives. There are some passionate romantic scenes, some of which have clearly implied sexual intercourse, but there is no graphic nudity, bringing the film in at the high end of the PG-13 spectrum.

Look, this production isn’t going to blow your socks off. Reminiscence spends too much time in a sandbox full of other movies’ toys, and those constant similarities could easily prove irritating to a familiar audience. If that doesn’t bother you, the purple prose slipping into the dialogue probably will. But if you can muscle your way through those issues, I think there’s enough here to be worth watching if you’re a fan of the genre. If nothing else, it should remind you of the good times you’ve had with the films from which it borrows.