Imagine that there was a machine you could use, that could transport you to any time and any place in your memories. Would you use it to revisit your fondest memories (and potentially get lost in them forever)?

Reminiscence is about just that.

In REMINISCENCE, director Lisa Joy exposes us to a world almost similar to ours marked by extreme climate change, socio-economic warfare & political corruption.

Though Sci-fi may seem more fitting for this genre of movie, I would call it sci-fi,noir-romance movie. The movie centers on the character Nick Banister played by Hugh Jackman searching for his girl after she abruptly disappears. The movie is brilliant, neo-noir with the right amount of romance and passion.

Nick Bannister is a veteran weighed down by the horrors hoisted upon him during the war. He and many others in Miami seek to free themselves from a depressive, oppressive reality. Nick deals in nostalgia, a remembrance of fonder pasts.

His high-tech reminiscence machine, once used as an interrogation device, allows for its users to revisit and record memories in glorious 3-D while the mind is put into a trance-like state. The business has been waning and he and partner Watts (Thandiwe Newton) have to pick up side gigs to make ends meet. On the side, he works as a private contractor for the district attorney’s office, aiding in their investigations.

Nick’s world turns upon the breathtaking arrival of Mae (Rebecca Ferguson). Her innocuous request to help find her keys leads to the pair engaging in a passionate love affair. But, as quickly as they fall for each other, she abandons him, leaving him desperately, plunging into the past hoping to fix their future.

As he’s left to pick up the pieces of his broken heart, he’s asked to help the DA piece together a puzzling case involving drug dealer Saint Joe (Daniel Wu) and terminally ill land baron Walter Sylvan (Brett Cullen). However, when Mae miraculously turns up in a viewed memory from someone connected to the case, the discovery takes Nick through a dark underworld, unfolding more information on the woman he thought he knew.

Hugh Jackman delivers a very convincing and brilliant performance
what’s most attractive about his role is how his macho presence turns into a passionate romantic and he balances that perfectly into his character. His constant relentlessness in searching for his girl despite the consequences and risks he has to go through will surely make the ladies fall in love with Nick Bannister!

Rebecca Ferguson is the perfect smart, seductive femme fatale, she plays her role perfectly showing us how women are taken advantage of in a male-dominated world.

Jackman and Ferguson have amazing chemistry. Making us care for the couple before the narrative pulls them apart.

Joy’s precise lens, storytelling, and perspective are handled intelligently.

The love story hits all the right notes, touching on and expanding upon the fundamentals, and most importantly the movie has true romance and passion which you are missing from the movies you see these days, it’s beautiful and its old-school vibe.

With surrealist, mind-bending world and aesthetics, REMINISCENCE crafts a beautiful and magical love story that for sure will not be forgotten.

Reminiscence release across cinemas (and IMAX) from today!

PG Rating – 15