Review : Before I Go To Sleep

Before I Go To Sleep : The story is about a woman who wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. Until one day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.

This mystery thriller based off a best selling book by S J Watson reflects primarily on the focus to embody changing cultural anxieties and nightmares. If you've read the book, you'll understand this better. The characters have their own purpose and significance within the story and supporting characters are just there as supporting characters to support in the main role of Christine who has strange endeavours of waking up with no memory of what had occurred as a result of her traumatic past. 

Now just suppose that film is there to visually captivate the context of the raw synopsis of the story written in the book in its simplest form, because believe it or not accuracy isn't the key here its making sure you understand the point, and the plot is quite interesting if you stop to think about it - A violent amnesia thriller which is thrilling to watch but unmemorable. A Panasonic Lumix camera is an integral part of the plot. With its grown-up cast and grown-up situations, it seems unlikely that teens of this generation will be interested.

So what's the story about? - Christine is a 40-year-old amnesiac who can store up information over the course of a day, but every morning when she wakes up, all memories back to her twenties are erased. So every day, she wakes up next to a strange man, who explains that he's her husband and tells her what's going on. 

Another man, Dr. Nasch, calls every day and asks Christine to locate a video diary she keeps and to watch the recordings. He then meets her for a series of appointments and tests. As Christine has flashes of memory and records them in her diary, she begins to discover that something isn't quite right in her strange little world. The script has its fair share of twists and plot holes to keep the audience gripped to the drama and interested to carry on watching, but in the book its more established in depth which sadly is absent in this film.

Before I go to sleep is an okay-ish type of film. Nothing truly spectacular or memorable about it at all which is a surprise given its interesting choice of cast, the average viewer may not likely not be going to remember this film any time soon, and yet it's still serviceable. 

If I'm being honest and presenting this in a critical way I expected more drama, the acting really does help elevate the film's interesting premise from underwhelming to almost average standard. It's not the only thing that works, though: it's interesting while watching it and suitably tense enough. It contains a few strong scenes of very intense violence with a man brutally beating up a woman. He slaps and hits her, and uses blunt objects. 

The film does look very presentable in its merits, throughout there were many moments where I went "Oh that's an interesting choice of shot" or "Oh, that looks good". But when it finished, I left thinking 'It was good' but I won't buy it on DVD. I'd probably stay to watch if Its on TV in the future and I just happen to be flicking through the channels and its on, but that's really it for me. 6/10

Next Review : Pride