Before I Go To Sleep

So I saw Before I Go To Sleep, and it was basically 50 First Dates as a horror movie. Every morning Christine (Nicole Kidman wakes up with no memory, her husband-who she doesn't remember-gives her the rundown of her condition and what’s going on with everything. Actually it’s a lot like the end of 50 First Dates, but instead of romantic or something, it’s sort of grim and depressing. You feel bad for her husband (Colin Firth) until we learn about the mysterious doctor (Mark Strong) trying to help her condition, and we gets the sense that neither are telling the whole truth, and nothing is as it seems.

Amnesia seems like a cool device for a thriller, it guarantees that the audience knows things that the character doesn't, and has the potential to be totally mind-bending and fun. While there are some twists and turns in the plot, for the most part things just kind of go normally. Besides occasionally showing her waking up and not knowing exactly what's going on, for the most part Christine just keeps on adding to her memories and understanding at a steady pace. 

I was surprised more by what the movie DIDN'T do. For a movie about a character who's memory resets whenever they fall asleep, there wasn't really a scene where Christine stays up late trying desperately to stay awake to do something important. Similarly there were a couple places where the movie could have taken a very dark turn and didn't seemingly because the film makers didn't want to go for a true twilight zone style ending. For me these kinds of missed opportunities really keep the movie from being great.

One last thing. Everyone, if you find yourself in a thriller movie type situation: A strange house, pursued by a bad guy, definitely in trouble. If you have a working phone, please call 911 (or your local equivalent), most emergency services can trace your phone and have someone on their way to you right away! Don't get caught by the bad guy because you're trying to find a piece of mail or looking out the window for a street sign to figure out where you are! Also, like I said in the No Good Deed review, it's OK to hit your attacker with the same improvised weapon more than once. My motto: If you're going to stab them one time, you might as well stab them like a dozen times.