Film review: Before I Go to Sleep
Before she goes to sleep, Christine Lucas (Nicole Kidman) spends her day reconstructing the events of the past 10 years. She has a form of amnesia that doesn’t allow her to build lasting memories, and when she wakes up in the morning, she no longer remembers what happened to her the day before, the week before or the month before — in fact, she has no memory of her life since an incident a decade earlier that left her naked and bloodied in a parking lot close to the airport.
The only two people she has around her are her husband, Ben (Colin Firth), and a neuropsychologist, Dr. Nasch (Mark Strong), who has asked her to make a video diary, which might trigger memories and at the very least get the facts from the only person she feels she can trust in this situation: herself.
One has to believe that the viewer’s impression of Memento-esque déjà vu has to be intentional, and that is a worrisome prospect, because Christopher Nolan’s cleverly constructed tale of murder and memory loss had a very dark element to it despite all the bright sunshine of its Los Angeles setting, producing a truly unforgettable experience.
To read the full review, visit The Prague Post.
(Still of Nicole Kidman in Before I Go to Sleep. Photo by Laurie Sparham – © 2014 – StudioCanal.)
