Forget Me Not (2010)

Review BY 

ANDREW JONES

 – FEBRUARY 23, 2011

Release Date – 6th May 2011
Certificate – TBC
Country – UK
Runtime – 91 mins
Directors – Alexander Holt & Lance Roehrig
Starring – Tobias Menzies, Genevieve O’Reilly and Gemma Jones

Forget Me Not opens with a man singing and playing guitar in a bar. Relaxed environment though this may be, when we follow him home where he runs a bath he grabs a razor blade and some pills and contemplates suicide. A cross between Once and Before Sunrise but set in London between midnight and midday, Forget Me Not wears it’s forefathers on it’s sleeve, and unfortunately only ever makes the audience fondly remember those films in comparison.

Our male and female leads get together due to the forgetting of a guitar, need for alcohol and a drunken bar patron who is a bit too ‘handsy’, and just like that, the two walk London, from party to mini-cab offices, talking, relaxing, and forming a bond, albeit one that has it’s ups and downs.

Tobias Menzies and Genevieve O’Reilly are easy to watch throughout the film, they have a good chemistry and handle the dialogue well enough. However, the film’s script falls down far too often; Dialogue can range from heavy-handed anecdotes about family, life and love to quick wit and snappy comebacks, but it lacks both the emotional punch and realistic edge for the former and real humour and great characters to work around the comebacks for the latter. Though one scene near the end, featuring a devastatingly brilliant Gemma Jones, slowly but thoroughly hits you hard. A test for Alzheimer’s (Thus the title of the film), which Eve (O’Reilly)’s grandmother fails, with a scene of painful truth that really is exceptional. Alas, this is a rare moment and the only time the script truly shines.

Thankfully though the two directors, Alexander Holt and Lance Roehrig, have added a lot to the film’s visual look. It stands out and has many well placed shots, great camerawork, some amazing bursts of colour and interesting use of depth of field which definitely separating it from other films of the same ilk. A visually stunning little film that manages to capture both the real London and some postcard shots too, such as a visit to the London Eye at about 6 in the morning, or walking down Whitehall at 7am and it being entirely empty, if only. When Forget Me Not works, it shines admirably, but when it doesn’t, the film can become tedious and the choice to add a twist at the end detracts from the rest of the film, as does it’s oddly dark opening. Whilst the film may be trying to separate itself from other similar features it manages to distinguish itself for the faults it creates in the process rather than what could have been a small but solid comic drama, with some grand moments of inspired emotional connection to the audience.

One hopes that the directors can move on and work on films that aren’t dragged down by a limp, often lifeless script, in the future and instead make a film that has the depth in drama that can go with the visually inspired way they work, but Forget Me Not isn’t a film that would ever be considered required viewing. Even for the moments that it works, the film can’t quite add up to a great series of filmic events in a dull film, which is the saddest thing about the whole affair.

http://www.letmewatchthis.ch/watch-2317611-Forget-Me-Not