Before I Go To Sleep
Director: Rowan Joffé
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong
Length: 92 min
Country: UK, France, Sweden
Christine Lucas (Nicole Kidman) cannot remember any events beyond a day. Following a traumatic accident that left her with severe head injuries, Christine’s memory slate is wiped clean as she sleeps and awakes every morning to find that she is no longer in her early twenties, but in her forties in a home of her own. Each morning, her husband Ben (Colin Firth) patiently explains who he is and provides her with some basic information about his wife that her 20-year-old brain has yet to learn. All the while, Dr Nasch (Mark Strong) is in daily contact with Christine, calling her once Ben has left for work, reminding her to check her camera for her video diary so she can take control of her own life.
A great deal of focus is placed on Christine’s eyes. They are very often the first thing we see as she wakes daily and we are drawn into them while watching her silent panic and confusion as she takes her first tentative steps about her life every morning. Everything is new and director Rowan Joffé does a very good job of making Christine very much a rabbit in the headlights of her own life. Whilst a lot of scenes take place in dark and dingy locations, undoubtedly to cast doubt and suspicion on both men in her life, her eyes are very often illuminated. They subtly glow red under the yellow lights of a car park and are put under harsh, probing light in an MRI machine. Cinematographer Ben Davis even has Christine’s eye repeatedly zoomed into; the closest the audience can get to seeing into her troubled mind. Her eyes are shot in vivid colour and are always deeply bloodshot, as though raw with the constant pressure to understand and remember.
Nicole Kidman’s performance is suitably frail and bewildered without being irritating but I cannot guarantee you’ll entirely warm to her character until the film’s very touching closing scene.
Who can we trust? Is anyone what they seem? The audience are thrown nuggets of information throughout the film and rely on Christine to store what’s important onto her video camera. While we know the camera’s importance, it is dwelled on less as each day passes. Some of this is done successfully. The days blur into one with Christine’s familiarity never being and her pain being fresh every day. In these early scenes, short sound bites of her video diary are played over the action to reinforce that, yes, she still watches her video every morning to remember who she is. For my own peace of mind, however, I wanted to see more of her video entries as the film reached its dramatic climax. I spent a lot of time willing the film’s lead to grab the camera before she goes to sleep again! This was a good way of maintaining an anxiety headache for the film’s duration.
Mark Strong plays the ambiguity of his character with measured precision and, as always, is a powerful screen presence. Colin Firth, too, doesn’t disappoint and plays the loving and long-suffering husband very well. While every day is new to his wife, nothing is new to Ben and he has the tired and resigned air of a man put through the emotional wringer on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman’s performance is suitably frail and bewildered without being irritating but I cannot guarantee you’ll entirely warm to her character until the film’s very touching closing scene.
The audience are thrown nuggets of information throughout the film and rely on Christine to store what’s important onto her video camera.
Whilst it takes a while for the story to warm up and the intrigue to kick in, we are teased with lurid flashbacks of the incident that led to Christine’s memory loss before a startling revelation kick-starts this film and transforms it into a pacey thriller. I was continually engaged and at times gripped by Before I Go To Sleep and while I enjoyed discovering the truth behind Christine’s accident and past, I’m unlikely to come back to it again. If you’re looking for a new Memento, you’re not going to get it. By the film’s end nothing is left down to interpretation nor requires clarification from a second, third or fourth viewing. Before I Go To Sleep is much more linear in structure and while I felt sustained intrigue, there’s none of the choppy scene-cutting of Christopher Nolan’s amnesia classic. I’m afraid it may be a bit forgettable in the long run.
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