Before I Go to Sleep UK Facebook
A disastrous amnesia thriller based on an internationally best-selling novel.
Basically ‘Before I Go to Sleep’, is a dreadful amnesia thriller which stars Colin Firth as Ben and Nicole Kidman as the amnesiac Christine Lucas. The movie is based on an internationally best-selling novel written by S.J. Watson in 2011.
The novel has been translated into 40 languages and has become a bestseller in France, Canada, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. The story is so poorly plotted, anti-feminist and ridiculous that it is hard to imagine that anyone would want to make a movie on it. What is more surprising is the number of booklovers the book has.
Kidman plays the role of a woman Christine Lucas who wakes up every morning with the past 20 years of her life erased from her memory. She has no idea who she is and where she is. Ben her husband tells her every day that he is her husband and that a traumatic head injury has left her with such a condition.
He goes on explaining everything to her such as foods she is allergic to and assuring her that he will be home soon from work. Christine also sees a psychologist named Nasch who is played by Mark Strong, who has been working with her to bring her memory back.
She is also given a camera by Nasch so she can video her day to day memory in order to remember things. She keeps this video diary hidden so that Ben does not find it. The set-up of the movie is however a complete knockout.
The filmmakers Rowan Joffe and producer Ridley Scoot know what powerful device amnesia is especially when you are making a thriller. It has been used ample of times before too. Memory is such an essential human device as it confirms what we already know and causes new questions to arise which make it such a perfect device to design a thriller around.
However for people who love to watch thrillers it is very unfortunate as ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ has few moments of intrigue and them the plot falls flat and quickly turns into a boring and tedious movie.
Moreover the non-serious attitude of both Nicole and Colin, who also starred together this year in ‘The Railway Man’, does not help the movie. Kidman unlike her frequent roles looks bewildered and uninterested.
This could be due to the role itself or that the actress is doing it on purpose as she does not want to secure roles in any such movies again. Colin’s also pushes it too much with his British accent and mumbles more then he speaks his dialogues.
The only actor that has put effort in the movie and has dedicated himself to his role is Mark Strong. Only his sincere doctor’s role is one thing to be praised in the 93 minute movie. Now moving forward to the worst part of ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ is that throughout the movie Kidman’s role is abuse and tortured both physically and psychologically.
Why this happens to her is revealed towards the end of the movie when we get to know that she is suffering all this because she cheated on her husband. So it portrays the image that she deserved the horrible attack that left her with a permanent brain injury.
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