Parents' Guide to Remember Me

This is a confusing film; it's not difficult to understand, but it doesn't gel together as anything deeper than a shockingly gimmicky treatise on violence. It is not, despite what the trailers depict, just a romance, although there are romantic scenes thanks to the attractive leads. REMEMBER ME is more of a self-indulgent rumination on how various forms of violence and grief change people, from the intimate acts of suicide and a daughter's slap in the face to a cold-blooded murder and the collective horror of a terrorist attack. Unfortunately for viewers, director Allen Coulter and screenwriter Will Fetters don't have much of a vision other than building up to the shocking final 10 minutes, which, while gasp-inducing is a manipulative and unnecessary stunt.

Clearly Pattinson has practiced the brooding, downward gazing look of gorgeous young introverts. But as hard as Pattinson tries to sulk and simmer, cigarette in hand, he doesn't have the same edge as say Ryan Gosling or the late Heath Ledger or even his co-star de Ravin (for proof watch her fabulously creepy turn as Claire on Lost's final season). Pattinson isn't quite believable when he's punching a guy into a pulp or menacing a schoolgirl who made fun of his little sister. Of the two parent-child subplots, the de Ravin-Cooper relationship is so much better acted and developed. Brosnan, on the other hand, sports one of the worst Noo-Yawk accents ever captured on film, and as a result is hard to take seriously. The most entertaining supporting player is definitely Ellington as Pattinson's humorously verbose, jerk of a roommate. He is welcome, if at times annoying, comic relief.