Films > DVD Reviews

Before I go to sleep

27/11/14

You wake every morning to find that you have no recollection of the previous day’s events; despite thinking you’re in your twenties, you’re actually in your forties; and you view the people around you with confusion, fear and mistrust. You’re probably some sort of musician or film critic. Either that, or you’re Nicole Kidman in this flawed but thoroughly enjoyable adaptation of S.J. Watson’s best-selling psychological thriller.

‘BIGtS’, then, is like ‘Groundhog Day’ in reverse, or, if you prefer, ‘Memento’ in forwards. Following an “accident”, Copper-topped Cruise-dropper Kidman can’t remember anything pre-slumber and must piece her life together afresh on a daily basis, aided (or is she?) by husband Colin Firth and bonce-doctor Mark Strong. Is everything as it seems? Well, no. Of course not. Duh.

There are some nice twists and deft misdirection as we get to closer to the nasty heart of the matter, and the performances are, as one would expect from a cast of this calibre, exemplary. As I said, it’s thoroughly enjoyable. Unfortunately, ‘BIGtS’ suffers slightly from evoking the memory of several films to which it’s inferior. The aforementioned ‘Memento’ is one. More pertinently, David Fincher’s masterful ‘Gone Girl’ is cut from the same cloth, but it’s tailoring is in a different league. There’s probably some Hitchcock, too. I’m not sure. I forget.

There’s a lot to like about ‘BIGtS’, and I’d recommend it to anyone. But I doubt you’ll be thinking about it the next day.