Before I Go To Sleep
Now playing at International Village
There’s already one best-selling thriller adaptation lighting up big screens (Gone Girl) and Before I Go To Sleep, based on S.J. Watson’s literary hit, is unlikely to steal any of that thunder, regardless of how hard Nicole Kidman is trying.
The actor is trying very hard indeed. Thanks to a condition called “anterograde amnesia” her character Christine relives the fresh horror of memory loss every day. She wakes next to Ben (Colin Firth), a husband she doesn’t recognize, and she receives daily counsel from a psychiatrist (Mark Strong). Christine therefore doesn’t have too many contented moments, and neither does Kidman. We don’t know her character’s history because neither does she. This disconnect and the film’s repetitious gravity doesn’t serve it well.
The narrative unspools with the help of a video diary Christine has been secretly keeping. She’s vaguely aware that the two men in her life may not have her best interests at heart, and each day she gets closer to understanding the source of her amnesia, a horrific and as-yet-unsolved attack years earlier that left her naked and bleeding.
We can hardly blame Ben for being so rigid: it can’t be easy trying to get your wife to fall in love with you each and every day (many men can’t even manage flowers on their anniversary). Dr. Nasche seems suspect, too. “Admittedly this isn’t your run-of-the-mill doctor-patient relationship,” he says, a sweeping understatement, given that several of their consultations take place in deserted parking garages and without spousal knowledge. As for the pitter-patter of little feet: that’s another mystery waiting to be solved.
Revelations of sorts arrive after Christine ventures out to see an old friend (Anne-Marie Duff). It’s a rare escape from the claustrophobic confines of Christine’s world. Her spartan house is about as antiseptic as a home can get; production designer Kave Quinn keeps Christine’s world sterile with greys and dull earth tones, a relatively anonymous house in the generic London suburbs.
Of course, it’s also possible that Christine is merely paranoid. Is it a conspiracy plot, or a portrait of a woman unraveling? Unfortunately, there’s more than one plot hole to be circumvented before we arrive at the answer.
Kidman has had practice playing characters suffering a break with reality. The actor has played a woman living with her ghost children (The Others), a masochistic prison bride (The Paperboy), a neurotic ice-queen (Margot at the Wedding), a victim of rape and xenophobia (Dogville), the grieving mother of a dead child (Rabbit Hole) and a widow confronted by a 10-year-old who claims to be her reincarnated husband (Birth). This is the second film this year to pair Kidman with Firth (The Railway Man).
Amnesia dramas are nothing new — 50 First Dates and Memento spring first to mind — and Before I Go To Sleep does little to distinguish itself. Anchored by a strong cast the film emerges as a satisfying enough thriller, albeit one as quickly forgotten as Christine’s daily to-do list.Â
