Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/418071
NOVEMBER 19-25, 2014 UCW 25 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM IN THE MORNING Weekdays 5:30AM to 10:00AM 3006 Bragg Blvd. 910.323.1791 www.thetrophyhouseinc.com Order your Football Award or Thanksgiving Gift Now! Hours: 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. M-F Before I Go to Sleep (92 minutes) looks good on paper but somehow fails in translation. The first half of the movie is a decent thriller, with enough legitimate misdirection to hold my attention and keep me guessing. The second half of the thriller is just stupid, with the central conceit weighing it down like so much stale Halloween candy. Remember that guy from Memento and Drew Barrymore in Fifty First Dates? They both had that weird amnesia where they can't form new memories. Remember how you watched those movies and thought, you could tell those characters the most random weird secret awful stuff and they would forget about it soon after, giving you the freedom of confession without the burden of lasting repercussions? Not just that, either. If they were driving you up the wall with their personal eccentricities and you snapped and shouted terrible things at them, you wouldn't even need to apologize. You could just walk away and start over fresh the next day. So, if you were a psychopath you could totally take advantage of that sort of amnesia, is what I'm saying. The film opens on Christine Lucas' eye. She's naked in bed with some dude that turns out to be Colin Firth. As any sane woman would do, once she realizes she's in bed with Colin Firth she goes back to sleep and lives happily ever after. Of course that would end the movie pretty quick, so instead she wanders into the bathroom and checks out all the pictures and notes somebody has left her to fill her in on her life. When she comes out of the bathroom there's a regular Q&A session about their marriage and her memory loss that Colin Firth appears to have pretty well scripted. It doesn't take her long to chill out about all the confusing stuff she can't remember or dismiss the concerns that must have entered her mind when she realizes she got married four years prior to her "accident" and still can't remember anything about her marriage. Soon after her husband leaves for work Christine receives a call from Dr. Nasch (Mark Strong). Since Mark Strong is known for playing morally ambiguous, shady, and downright evil characters, I immediately begin to suspect he is part of a vast conspiracy to drug Christine and harvest her eggs to create redheaded android babies. After a few minutes he suggests Colin Firth has no idea she is being treated for amnesia and he starts talking specific details about her bedroom and stuff, so I a develop a new theory. I think that Mark Strong and Colin Firth take turns playing her husband/doctor in order to mess with her (for some reason). You know what? Either of those plots would be a vast improvement over what actually happens. As the days pass Christine begins to recover some faint memories, including that she had a friend named Claire (Anne-Marie Duff ). She gets flashbacks of being attacked and telling different people random information. She gradually comes to believe that Dr. Nasch was the man who attacked her, and with him spending lots of time doing things that fall outside the normal doctor-patient relationship, the audience is taken down that path as well. After some confusing back-and-forth regarding why Colin Firth tells her lies every time she asks him any question whatsoever, for some reason, Christine decides he has her best interests at heart and resolves to be the best little wife she can be. Surprisingly, that does not end well. As anyone with the slightest amount of sense could figure out, there is something shady afoot, and all is revealed. The big reveal is a stupid narrative cheat that hinges on Colin Firth lacking any degree of common sense and Christine passively submitting instead of actively pursuing her own answers. Momento for Chicks Before I Go to Sleep (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200.