In Atom Egoyan’s Remember, Christopher Plummer plays a 90 year old Holocaust survivor with dementia who extricates himself from his nursing home to hunt the man who killed his family in Auschwitz. It’s basically Memento meets Cocoon, and yes, it’s as good as it sounds.
Information is parcelled out at a good pace over the course of the film’s tight 95 minutes. It can be predictable at times, but that doesn’t make it any less suspenseful. In many ways it’s a superficial film, concentrating more on the thriller aspect with touches of light humour than it does on seriously addressing the wounds of genocide.
The success of the film really hinges on the casting of the lead, and they couldn’t have found anyone better. Despite the story’s lack of depth, Plummer conveys multiple layers in a stellar performance that’s sure to garner awards attention. Egoyan stays out of the way, letting Plummer’s performance and first time screenwriter Benjamin August’s script do most of the work.
It’s been a long while since an Egoyan film has been a real conversation starter, I think Remember is going to break that trend.
This review was originally published as part of our TIFF 2015 coverage.
Read our interview with Dean Norris here.
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