Film Review: ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ Not Worth Remembering

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CHICAGO – “Before I Go To Sleep” is a lobotomized amnesiac thriller that sure hopes its audience can’t remember “Memento.” It presents its promising concept as a slow, poorly paced potboiler that is packed with unpleasantness.

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 1.0/5.0
Rating: 1.0/5.0

This shouldn’t happen with two Oscar winners in the leads. Nicole Kidman is a woman who can’t retain any short term memories, and loses everything after 24 hours. She knows everything up until her 20’s, but everyday she wakes up in a 40 year old’s body and wonders how she got there. She goes into her bathroom to find pictures posted on the wall with helpful post-it notes identifying the name of her husband (Colin Firth). He explains to her who she is, where she is, and what happened to her. The third wheel here is a therapist (Mark Strong) who is secretly treating Kidman and may have ulterior motives for keeping their sessions a secret from Firth.

Strong gives her a camera to begin keeping a video diary to capture her own memories and discoveries about her life instead of relying on Firth’s accounts. Firth walks the line between exasperation and domineering just enough that he almost makes the audience feel for this poor sap for having to put up with her.

“Before I Go to Sleep” opens everywhere on October 31st. Featuring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Ann-Marie Duff, Adam Levy. Screenplay adapted from the novel by S.J. Watson by Rowan Joffe. Directed by Joffe. Rated “R”

StarContinue reading for Spike Walters’ full review of “Before I Go to Sleep”

Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth
Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth in “Before I Go to Sleep”
Photo credit: Clarius Entertainment

StarContinue reading for Spike Walters’ full review of “Before I Go to Sleep”

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