Before I go to Sleep - Danny's Review

I was supposed to watch The Giver today, but couldn't face another teen drama. Instead I went for the solid grown-up Before I go to Sleep, helmed by the three heavyweights Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Mark Strong.

It was a wise choice. Mark Strong was good and menacing, Colin Firth was so nice he came across as menacing, and Kidman was very innocent and confused. She has daily amnesia, and every morning has to be reminded of who she is. It's like 50 First Dates, but scarier.

Because she has no memories of her own Kidman has to trust what other people are telling her, and this makes her very vulnerable. You only know as much as she does, and feel her sense of fragility; you're always braced for the next revelation that will shatter what she thinks she knows.

In order that she can build up her knowledge she starts a little video diary which she watches each day. It's a bit like Leonard tattooing himself in Memento, but less painful. But once that starts getting erased she's in big trouble, and you can sense her frustration as she knows that tomorrow she won't remember a thing. It builds up nicely, but ... [scroll down for massive spoiler]

...the ending is very poor. The big twist is that actually the man she's been living with is not really her (ex)-husband. In fact he's the one who she had an affair with years ago, who then beat her up causing her amnesia.

For the last four years he's effectively kidnapped her, photoshopped himself into her wedding photos, and tells her the same lies every day. This is an ingenious idea, and makes for a good surprise, but collapses under scrutiny. Why does her actual husband and son not realise that she's out of the care home and living with a maniac? Surprisingly, this dramatic but ill-conceived twist also features in the book the movie is based on.

And while I'm at it, why does this therapy of giving her a camera (or in the book a written diary) have such a drastic effect (her amnesia improves during the film)? Surely it would have been tried before, 14 years ago when she first had amnesia.

Overall though, a good tense drama. The amnesia angle is a good one, and is dealt with more thoroughly than say Trance, which instead packs in a lot more plot twists.

Kidman, Firth, Anne-Marie Duffy, author S.J. Watson and director Rowan Joffe