Before I Go to Sleep

Literally messing with your head, Nicole Kidman plays a woman who suffered Trauma to the head that makes her forget the past 15 years of her life when she falls asleep. She wakes up next to her husband, a man she does not know unforgettably played by Colin Firth, and as her doctor played by Mark Strong begins to help her deal with the illness things about her past begin to burst out like a kid taking out puzzle pieces and some how she has to put this puzzle together, even though when she wakes in the morning, the puzzle's messed up again. It's a strange mystery watching the protagonist solve the mystery that is her life. The whole thing would have come off one dimensional if it were not for Colin Firth's part as the emotionally distress husband who loves his wife but wants somethings to stay lost in her memory. It was an enjoyable ride watching the mystery unfold, definitely glad I saw it.

I agree with the reviewer who wrote that this was "three quarters of a very good film." The cast is marvelous. Kidman brings movie queen presence and guarded vulnerability to her role, as only she can. The icy, remote, sparse atmosphere of the film is noteworthy, but somehow creates a detachment from the raw emotions of the story. The plot unfolds in an efficient, generally satisfying manner. However, the film is sober, where it should have been flamboyant, and safe where it might have been edgy. In the end, I was wishing this had been filmed with panache, by a stylish and adventurous director. Atmosphere and character developments might have been richer and more complex. As it stands, it is a solid, classy, well-acted potboiler.

In 1995, there was a movie called "While You Were Sleeping", a romantic vehicle for Sandra Bullock, but this 2014 similarly-titled work is very different: a thriller with Nicole Kidman in the central role as Christine, a woman who suffered a serious assault years ago and now forgets everything each time she sleeps. Two men are trying to help her, husband Ben (Colin Firth) and therapist Dr Nash (Mark Strong). Like most standard thrillers, we find that our assessments of the principals swing back and forth before 'the big reveal'.

There is a sub-genre of movies involving limited memory - think "Blink", "The Bourne Identity" or "50 First Dates" to name just a few - and "Before I Go To Sleep" is not the best of them (that would be "Memento") but, if one does not think too much about the implausible narrative, this is entertaining enough, helped by good source material (the best-selling novel by S J Watson) and the solid acting (Kidman with a good English accent, Firth not as straighforwardly charming as he is usually, Strong not as as unremittingly threatening as he is so often).

I'd actually read the book before seeing this film so it was a question to ask ourselves: can we be bothered? In the event, it was worth it and I found that I was submerged in the film during the showing.

It's the sort of film that doesn't get made very much now in these days of big budgets, explosions, and cartoonish characterisations. But I'm glad it appears on the big rather than the small screen of TV because they brought in really good actors in the three leads. Particularly in the case of Nicole Kidman, she downplays her looks to come across as an ordinary woman approaching middle age, a brave choice for an actress.

The big surprise to me was Colin Firth who is way outside his normal range here and completely credible in the role. Mark Strong also is good in portraying a psychiatrist with empathy.

The film is very sombre but this is appropriate for the subject matter and really the director and cinematographer deserve a lot of credit for catching the uneasy tone of the book.

The reason I don't give it a rating higher than 7 is the unnecessary slasher scenes which could I think could have been done without so much blood and violence. Modern filmmakers should pay more attention to the work of someone like Hitchcock who suggested the gore rather than shoved your face in it. Still a mature film well worth seeing.

The premise of Before I Go to Sleep is quite a good one. A woman wakes up each day with no memory beyond her early twenties; soon she begins to realise that some dark secrets are being hidden from her. It's sort of in similar territory to Christopher Nolan's early neo-noir Memento (2000), which was also a mystery/thriller about a character with a short-term memory loss condition. Like that one, here one of the interesting angles is that the central character has no idea if their friends really are friends or actually enemies. It's true that several aspects of the storyline require you to stretch your belief somewhat; however, many thrillers are similar in this respect, so this wasn't such a deal-breaker for me. The problem I essentially had is that while the idea may be pretty intriguing, ultimately the pay-off is somewhat mediocre and conventional. Piece by piece the puzzle is slowly unravelled but it doesn't end up presenting us with a picture that is very inspired or interesting and you sort of ask yourself 'is that it?'