Rating: A
Okay, so if you are anything like me, and you hear that this movie is about a woman with amnesia waking up every day with no memory of who she (or her husband) is, you immediately think it’s going to be a crappy re-hash of Memento or 50 First Dates, right?
Wrong. While watching Before I Go to Sleep, there was only one name running through my mind: ALFRED HITCHCOCK! The suspense in this film is utterly exquisite, on par with the great master himself. Not since Psycho or Dial “M” for Murder have you been more engrossed in a story set in only a couple of places with only four characters.
Every day Christine (Nicole Kidman) wakes up confused, and her husband Ben (Colin Firth) patiently explains what has happened to her since her head injury decades ago. It seems some assailant walloped her after she accidentally witnessed something incriminating, after which her best friend Claire mysteriously decided to cut ties. On top of this, her neuroscientist consultant Mike seems to know more than he lets on. The memories she recovers through her journal seem to indicate she was attacked because she stumbled onto someone’s affair. It is clear that between these four earnest and helpful characters in the story, one person, somewhere in the chain of events, is telling gigantic lies to cover up their vile true identity – and it might be her. Extra-marital affairs, secret identities, dead bastard children, attempted murder, and the little matter of figuring out who the hell you are, and more, challenge Christine to relive the night she doesn’t want to remember, to set the story straight once and for all.
It is SO hard to tell you how great this movie is without spoiling it. There are a hundred and one shocking secrets to be uncovered, and one by one they all have a reasonable explanation, until the very last, which is too sickening to contemplate. But they went there. And when the answer finally comes, it’s at the shock level of “Luke, I am your father.” (don’t worry, that is not a spoiler).
Holy crap do I recommend this movie.
Before I Go to Sleep
Directed by Rowan Joffé
