An Unofficial Remember Me Site

Tyler Laughs

2011-09-29T23:30:00.034-04:00

by Jessegirl

Can we dispel Tyler Hawkins’ brooding persona? Does the moody and morose young man in Remember Me ever break that barrier to complete joy? Is it in him when we get to know him? When we leave him? Because an ear-to-ear laugh, eyes crinkling, mouth open, chest shaking, would put any doubts to rest, wouldn’t they?

I thought I’d track the range of Tyler’s smiles and see what I can come up with. But before that, let’s remember what joy the actor who plays Tyler is capable of. Inside Robert Pattinson is a huge love of life and it is apparent by his ubiquitous, spontaneous broad grins and laughs which show us Joy. Infectious, full-throttle beaming things. Would Tyler ever get there, to that hilarious and radiant place? Had he lived, would Tyler have laughed like the actor does?

One can see a progression in Tyler’s general demeanour. The first time his father bails him out his expressions after the meeting are of frustration.

Contrast this with the second time Charles springs him after the vandalism episode at the school. This time Tyler smiles, but still only at his Dad’s back as Charles is leaving, because Tyler was surprised by his Dad’s approval.

So, only when Charles is out of sight, does Tyler really smile fully.

The contentment has begun, but Tyler keeps it to himself, can’t let his Dad in on it yet because it is too new.

Another such comparison can be made in his treatment of the receptionist. After his first bail-out, while he waits for his father in the reception area, he smirks at her in defiance when she upbraids him for smoking and he apparently wonders why he can’t use the decorative bowl as an ashtray. “Guess it was just here to tease me.” This instance of entitlement is disingenuous in tone and comes through with his mocking snicker. But that last morning Tyler grins boyishly in greeting, hands in the air like truce flags.

Here he is all play, almost giggly. She turns her back on him, not in the mood for or trusting his games, but we know he has come a long way emotionally.

Other things indicate the enormous internal journey he has made. Right from the beginning he stumbles into his room. Later he stomps out of the sweets shop. Coming out of the bar with Aiden and the girls, he wobbles unsteadily. (One his first date with Ally he walks backwards to face her, which is interesting, because inside he is actually making forward progress.) He stumbles around trying getting his bicycle to go to his Dad’s office the night of the boardroom fight, and when he returns, he staggers even more. He clumsily steps out of the bathtub, albeit in good humour, after he and Ally have their water squirting game. After his beating at the hands of Neil, he slips and flails at the stool, crumpling in defeat.

But by the end, Tyler skips down the hall to his father’s office. He moves serenely in the room. The troubled youth who stumbles through life transformed into the happy boy with a spring in his step, looking forward to seeing his father.

As we all do, Tyler behaves differently with each person. For his needy mother, the
smile is dutiful, as she adjusts his collar at Michael’s grave. It is the sombre tone of the meeting partly, but also his way of warding off her expectations. A lot is riding on him now that his older brother is gone.

At the sweets shop a bit later, he gives Caroline a genuine and broad, loving, lingering smile.

Another day, on the Alice statue, he smiles at her ‘yuletide homicide’ joke.

Again with Caroline, when he picks her up from school, both when he relates his pleasure at the book he and Michael shared, and when he explains his battered face with a joke ,

his smiles are playful and teasing.

On her last day of school, Caroline gets his big smile and outstretched arms in welcome.

He is her shelter in the storm. Brother and sister exchange more full grins when he agrees enthusiastically to go to her art show –“abso-freaking-lutely!”

He would not ever let her down.

When Tyler smiles at Aiden’s S.L.U.T. idea and later makes up a joke about ‘authors who have slept together...’ it is as one buddy to another.

However, other guys might have laughed full-out about the ladies’ tote, in the spirit of male bonding. Not Tyler. And other guys wouldn’t zone-out while shelving books immediately after tossing out a joke about writers. Reacting to Aiden’s intervention, Tyler grins at Aiden’s expense. “When was the last time you had just one drink?” he asks, smirking.

Then, at the bar, cigarette in mouth,Tyler chuckles at his friend’s unsuccessful attempt to make time with Megan. And, in the jail, when Aiden is lambasting him for not taking their situation seriously, Tyler sneers at his buddy’s use of the word ‘nihilistic’.

Not only did he dismiss his companion’s concern, Tyler did it with insult. Not his finest hour.

When Ally enters the picture, things change. Tyler oozes charm with what I’ll call ‘pick up smiles’. Interacting with her in the student lounge, he smiles and grins a lot, but it’s all part of the game, and, in my opinion, at this point, shallow and artificial.

On their first date at the Gandhi restaurant his smile reflects his candid confusion over her dessert first philosophy.

Then, at the fair, as he’s about to attempt to win her the panda, his lopsided smirk and raised eyebrow indicates good-humoured determination.
“You’re not 21,” he contradicts, his brittle smile showing us he knows he’s been duped.

Then, as she’s about to leave in the taxi, he smiles sheepishly after she’s rebuffed his attempted kiss.

Their next date, at his place, is the next step in getting to know each other and it is full of flirting and self-conscious behaviour. Tyler wants Ally to like him.

As he presses raw spaghetti noodles into the pot, he smiles, telling her he comes from a long line of Irish falconers. After dinner, he smiles when she comes to the sink to do dishes because his incompetence annoys her. This amuses him and one wonders whether it’s yet another move in the game.

He sprays her. Naughty boy, all big eyes, he wears a fatuous grin on his face as he watches for her reaction
Then the bathtub scene ratchets the date- teasing up a couple of notches and Tyler sports a full toothy grin as he tries to retrieve a wet cigarette from his pocket and then shoots her a goofy grin with the drenched ciggie dangling from his mouth.

Tyler is actually having fun, and the smiles are frequent and genuine.

And now Janine. Tyler and his father’s executive assistant seem to be in tune with each other’s moods. In the first bail out scene Janine asks after his health but, after looking him up and down, draws her own conclusion from his battered face and his breath. It seems like these two have a short hand. In a later scene, after Tyler and Ally have made love and he goes to the diner to write, Tyler encounters Janine, who is making a morning coffee run. She smiles at him with tender care and he returns this.

This is one of those scenes brimming with unspoken and deep affection and I have gone to it a number of times before. It nurtures this broken boy, and I’ll warrant Tyler knows Janine’s routine, looks forward to these encounters and to words about his father. Janine brings out the boy in Tyler; his smile in this interchange is full of long-standing goodwill. A very touching scene, played perfectly by Burton and Pattinson.

Smiles are not always indicators of happiness, of course. We all know it’s more
complicated than that. When Tyler blows out the candles on his 22nd birthday cake, although he is in shadow, he smiles. This is one of those complicated expressions. It is dutiful. His Mom is there, as are the others. They expect that of him. But his smile is so very wistful, almost sad. He is thinking of his brother and of the significance of the twenty-second year of life. For me, this is one of the saddest moments in the film. The foreshadowing was screaming at the viewer in its blatancy. The candles lit flames, snuffed out by his breath, and leaving the screen in deep shadow. Tyler is darkest of all, his charcoal form and the smile I talked about barely visible after he blows out the light.

There are two distinct opposing trajectories operating here, the destiny which pulls
Tyler closer to his death, and his inner path towards happiness. Ironically, after this foreboding birthday scene, Tyler’s smiles are more frequent. This is how the two paths clash.

From this point, we see Tyler’s growing contentment, his healing. At the beach house, with Ally and his family, he grins lazily at Aiden’s silly charades moves.

A moment later, he is subdued and reflective as he puts his hand tenderly on Ally’s head. Tranquil. Then, on the train ride home with Ally and Aiden, Tyler is all smiles. He is HAPPY!

True enough, the whole issue with Neil, Tyler’s confession to Ally, her rejection, his move to forgiveness, all derail this achievement and they sink him back into a big brood all over again. But by that time his destiny rams in, he has retrieved that hard-won contentment.

Tyler does nothing but smile on September 11th:

Tells Ally he loves her.

Big smiles as he leaves Ally and Aiden in the apartment.

Crinkly smile while he talks to his Dad on the phone.

A secret smile on the elevator on the way up to the office.

A boyish, playful grin for the receptionist.

A serene smile while he looks at the screensaver.

A peaceful smile as he’s about to go to the window. He keeps it as he approaches. He is content.

And then destiny’s trajectory hits its target.

Tyler was on the cusp of laughing the way Pattinson does. He never achieved that level of pure, spontaneous, unadulterated bliss, or levity. It was coming. Joy was on the horizon, But as we all know, so was something else. The point is, he was a man in motion, battling inner demons and winning because he’d forged alliances. Tyler could brood with the best of them, but even when he edged towards despair, his sense of self-preservation kicked in. His brooding was not fatalistic but antagonistic. He had the heart of a fighter. He seems to have had to fight for every
smile, or at least it could be said that every smile was like a victory.

No, Tyler never laughs in that infectious way, spilling his joy into the air around him and sending it to those around him in a big booming way. He does not seed the air with exhilaration. His serenity is good but it is still not the intoxicating relish of a young man. But, given a bit more time, he would have made it so. The promise was right there, in the language of his body and face in those moments with Janine, before. It was a promise one could count on.

And at the end, joy is an embryo, tucked inside his healing soul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remember Me and 9/11: Too Soon? - 10th Anniversary of September 11th Post

2011-09-10T16:31:00.012-04:00

-jessegirl- September 11, 2011

Blue sky day
Ten years ago, to the day, the U.S. suffered the horrific terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, and on the Pentagon. The heroic efforts of the passengers on board flight #93, who sacrificed their lives to abort another planned attack, prevented further carnage. At the end of the day, 3,000 people had perished people from many nationalities and faiths.

Those of us, who witnessed the events, whether live or on TV, have the images burned into our brains and we will always remember where we were when that second plane hit. Although this loss affected us all, I would like to express my condolences to the families and friends of all of the victims, for your losses are personal and huge. I am so sorry. And I will hope you understand the spirit in which my words are written, lest we forget.

I revisit, yet again, the film Remember Me, and its place in memorializing this enormous loss. It has become even clearer to me that since it was released in March of 2010, this film is one of the best tributes to every individual who was lost that day.

Too Soon?
Was Remember Me made ‘too soon’ after the event? Some detractors criticized it for that. Well, first of all other films preceded it. World Trade Center, with Nicholas Cage, 2006, for example, was five years after the fact. And Adam Sandler’s Reign Over Me came out in 2007. The lauded From Here to Eternity, about Pearl Harbor, was out in 1953. When is the right time, after 10 years, 15, 20, 25, after a generation has passed?

People thought it was too soon because, as I read it, the wound was still too raw.
“I left the movie theatre feeling like I’d been psychologically assaulted because I did not choose to see a film on that subject. That is not what I signed up for...Maybe a scant 8.5 years had dulled the memory of the masses, but it’s too soon for me...I wasn’t prepared to be unwillingly made to relive that day.” [Sara. March 16, 2010. –Brevet]

Remember Me’s Power
Let’s backtrack. What does Remember Me actually do to some people, to a lot of people?

It has the power to tap into our grief in a big way. It ferrets out our memories of 9/11 and brings them back in painful detail. It also seems to root around the wounds in our hearts and makes them bleed again. We are brought right back to our own personal losses in a visceral way. We suffer, yet again, the loss of a husband, wife, child, and others dear to us. We start pondering other types of loss, divorce, rape, and so on. Unhealed wounds come to the surface to hurt again. Remember Me is like a trigger for any trauma we have experienced and perhaps trips us up, forcing us to experience PTS symptoms. It is all very personal and strong. When you think about it, so many people are the walking wounded, for so many reasons, having suffered various types of personal trauma.

“...this was supposed to be an assault on the senses. It is a wakeup call to everyone to not take each day for granted...My mother was murdered very similar to the scene in the subway...Films can’t disclaimer everything. We all have had things happen to us that we probably would rather not remember...but sometimes we need to be reminded so that we can grow and change for the better.” [Tamara. March 18, 2010. –Brevet]

Indeed, one big reason people were commenting so passionately about the film was to
share their pain with others. Those of us who read learned this fellow commenter had had a miscarriage, that one was abused, another had lost a child, yet another survived a terrorist attack. The stories poured out of hearts, couldn’t be contained. The pain kept coming. It was astounding.

People are shaken to the core. It is not just a sad movie, a tear jerker. It is a tragedy, and I don’t think our society makes us really ready to accept tragedy into our lives. Under our society’s influence, we do not see the benefits of tragedy. I have discussed Remember Me as a tragedy in past posts and I don’t want to go over old ground again here. [The Tragic in Remember Me and
Tyler in Remember Me - The Human Face of Tragedy

The poster, Sara, blamed the movie. I am sorry for her pain but that was not the right target. I like what this person had to say about it:
“Any movie at any time can call to mind upsetting or unsettling events in our own lives. We can’t be sheltered from them and we can’t always know ahead what is coming. That is a bit of the message of Remember Me.” [ShariG –March 22, 2010. –Brevet]

So what about grief? Remember Me explores grief, which is its major theme, the grief of the characters who have lost a brother to suicide, a parent to murder. Then, at its climax, it drives home the point relentlessly with Tyler’s death in the North Tower. The key character, who had been dealing with his own grief throughout, was now being grieved. Not only was that, the whole nation, the world, thrown into grief. It was too much. It was heartbreaking in a primal way. One couldn’t get away from it. It was everywhere.

Grief is part of the human condition. We have humor. We have joy. We have fear. We have grief. Films give us all of these. Why should Remember Me’s story offend? The tie to 9/11 reinforces its power to affect us strongly. To haunt, as so many viewers have said.

It shoves us up against the wall. We have nowhere to run. We must deal. If Remember Me’s story had been told with crass disregard using 9/11 exploitatively, as some contend, then it could not have this power. It would be found out as a fraud. Grieving people would not feel this power if that were the case. They might not be ready to take on the measure offered yet, but that is another matter. “Some can deal with it, others not [yet]. But this says nothing about the quality of the movie and is surely not a reason to write bad reviews about it.” [Anne. March 17, 2010. –Brevet]

No one should be told how to grieve but it has been my experience that it cannot be avoided. It is excruciating agony. It is zoning out. It is, at times, inability to cope with the usual life commitments. It can be tears, insomnia, catatonic-like behavior, overeating, not eating, letting oneself go, depression, fear for loved ones, panic, general anxiety, obsessive behavior, inability to concentrate, and more. Intense grief can contribute to substance abuse, to divorce, to suicide even. The circumstances around some grief can be hugely traumatic, not easily absorbed.

Some people don’t want to talk about the lost one and others want to talk incessantly about the lost one. Some people put photos away, and others put them all over the house. Some people can no longer listen to music. Various things can trigger relapses, instances of acute grief: certain pieces of music, certain words, a memory, a movie, a friend’s face, a building, a street, -anything really. And in many cases these triggers cannot be anticipated.

Not Ready
Remember Me is a trigger for so many, on many levels, and some people just cannot deal. When I talked about Remember Me as a tragedy I talked about the great alchemical transformation within us. We can be changed, moved, touched, and brought to greater awareness. We can be put in touch with the well of tears at the center of the world. But we must go through the pain. There is no way around it. None.

“And to those who are angry and feel as though they’ve been sucker punched by this, I do understand where you’re coming from. I, too, was profoundly affected by this event on a personal level. But at some point we must face this and we haven’t yet. Generations past have faced their tragedies and so must we. I’ll concede this, with being less than 10 years...perhaps it’s a tad too soon for a film like this. Maybe...Yes, we are still in tremendous pain over it. But at some point, we must face it.” [Nikola. March 16, 2010. Brevet] Yes, I agree, we must face it.

But some people are not ready for it. That is not a criticism, just an observation. For them, Remember Me’s message is ‘too soon’. Perhaps they lost someone on 9/11 and haven’t gotten to that place in their grieving which allows them to absorb the power of Remember Me. Grieving is a very individual process, even if it has aspects similar for all. And those famous five stages do not necessarily come in a particular order or last for a pre-set amount of time. Grief is fraught with backsliding; it is not a constant regression at all. It is mercurial, unpredictable, can burn one moment and lie dormant the next. And, until we die, it can re-appear, because, even when we have resumed some semblance of normalcy, it is still there. The lie is to think we get over it. We are never fully, ‘over it’, even if we have gone through it. We just live with it.

When the people who are not now ready for Remember Me’s message get to the place where they are ready, this film will be able to work its transformative might on them. They must wait. Abusing this beautiful film is not the answer. They must wait. And when they are ready, must crawl before they walk, walk before they run, run before they fly.

Would we rather be unaffected?
Now if a film has the power to tap into our grief, perhaps this is a call to attend to it in some way. Very few films can do this. I know for a fact that Remember Me has this power. It has this power over me and has had it over others who have commented on public blogs and websites.

If it has this power, does that mean it is too soon after the tragic event? The real question is, would we rather be unaffected? Really? Would that not mean that the event meant nothing to us? Being immune might just mean we are callous. Because the pain means it matters, the dead matter.

Here’s what a couple of viewers had to say: “Yes, this movie packs a punch. I just don’t think that’s a bad thing...Should it be painful to remember? Yes. To me this film is a touching, respectful way to do just that: to remember.” [Karen. March 28, 2010. –Brevet]

And: “...it is a movie that will move many but will also cause great pain to others and that is what the power of movies can do, whether good or bad.” [Linda L. –March 17, 2010, answering someone who had wanted warning. –Brevet]

If Remember Me has the power to tap into grief, does that mean that one should attend to it? Does it not mean that it was made ‘just in time’? If Will’s story had been filmed later, if they had waited longer, would it have had the same impact?

The Young
I’m guessing that anyone younger than, say seven at the time, would forget, or would forget the import and meaning of 9/11 or would get a skewed perception of it due to their youth and the protection of their parents, unless they were right there, in lower Manhattan, and had to escape the raging dust storm. So anyone born between, say, 1994 and 2010 wouldn’t remember. And if they did, it was a history lesson.

From comments, it is clear that a certain demographic did not remember. “My daughter’s going to be 17 this year and we live in Europe. She knew about 9/11 and was taught about it in school by documentaries. But....only after seeing Remember Me she realized the emotional impact on all those people living in NY and in America. ..I think Remember Me should be shown in high schools ‘cause there are several themes’ worth to be discussed about.” [blackbeanie June 10, 2010 IMDb Remember Me message board]
And: “My daughter is really too young to remember 9/11, but this was a chance for us to talk about it...” [Pam. March 15, 2010. –Reesman] These are not the only people to report this phenomenon.

If you were 15 yrs. in 2009 and saw Remember Me — perhaps because Robert Pattinson was in it — you would have been seven on 9/11. Some of those viewers thought Tyler committed suicide, and that confused them [Kim, April 29, 2010. –Brevet]. They had no idea about September 11th. To those of us who can pinpoint our exact location during those 102 minutes it is inconceivable that teenagers wouldn’t know. And yet, this is exactly what has happened. “For the younger generation, people who were too young to be aware of what happened then but know about it now, maybe bringing such a monumental catastrophe down to such an intimate, personal level will help them connect and understand that day in a way they couldn’t before.” [Jennifer L. –March 17, 2010. –Brevet]

I read again and again that ‘everyone knows what happened that day’—said by people who state that they don’t need to be reminded—but in fact that’s not true. The point is that everyone does not know. The other point is that everyone does not really understand the loss. Given that it is a consensus that we must never forget it is puzzling why some people don’t want to be reminded.

Too Late?
What happens if Remember Me is too late? Some tragedies happened too long ago to have the same effect. They feel historical, in a time presumably different enough to be irrelevant except to impart a teary lesson in a remote way. It was so long ago. Like the Trojan War, even WWII. We care, we cry, and then thank God that was then, this is now.

But 9/11? Remember Me was in theatres less than 10 years after the attacks, soon enough for it to turn us inside out. It would force us to attend to our grief. No way around. It would force us to learn the lesson, hear Remember Me’s message. It would force us to find meaning, so that Tyler’s death, so that every one of those deaths, was not in vain.

Is this bad? Why is this bad? Grief is one of the worst things thrown at us in life but we have to bear it somehow.

In fact, those of us who assert confidently that Remember Me will become a classic someday must understand that its monstrous power might be muted the farther away from 9/11 it gets. We are the ones who can feel its full strength now, if we let it. Although, given its genius, its insistence on keeping everything at an intimate level, I could be wrong. Like any great tragedy, its power to affect us at the epicenter of our being would remain undiluted, because it speaks to the universal through the personal.

Remembering
One can remember things, even horrible things, in a removed way, hear a speech, shed some tears, and then go on with life as usual. People are upset about Remember Me because it does not allow them to just skim the surface of memory. Instead it is heart-stopping. It gets right inside and won’t let go.

People have noticed that Remember Me polarizes. For example: “The film is extremely polarizing and personal...I think a great deal of the reaction was over reaction and knee jerk.” [Sammie1863. June 19, 2011. IMDb. ‘Most honest film regarding 9/11’ thread.]

I have come to the conclusion that the two camps are: *-those who refuse to remember in a meaningful way, who shoot the messenger because they won’t deal with real pain. Some of these will genuinely not be ready. I respect those for whom it is really too soon. But some others do not have the emotional depth to care. They are the ones who happily and contemptibly shoot Remember Me down for no valid reason. **-those who brave the firestorm of pain to grasp the true dimensions of what was lost. It is only the latter who will appreciate the heartfelt tribute Remember Me is. It is only those who are willing and able to really remember September 11th, who have the emotional and moral fiber to do it. Now.

Cheapening, Elevating, Deepening
I quoted Pattinson in another post [Robert Pattinson in Remember Me: Part One]:

“As an actor, you can elevate the human condition or cheapen it. I would assume it’s the same with anything you do- you try to elevate and maybe someday you will.”[Robert Pattinson, speaking to Jenny Lumet for Details, March 2010]

A couple of quotes from viewers note the cheapening aspect.
“I believe the only thing shameful about Remember Me is the critics who have cheapened a noble effort without so much as looking back –almost gleeful in their determination to tell movie audience to stay away.” [Coopergirl. March 16, 2010. –Brevet]

“This movie is a tribute, not an insult to the memories of all those who were impacted. It cheapens everyone, from those responsible for this film to the viewers, to the actual victims of that horrific day, to say otherwise.” [Karen. March 18, 2010. –Brevet]

Actually, it is not possible to cheapen something so authentically crafted as Remember Me. The attempt says more about the person trying to do so than about the movie. The point of origin for mud slingers is the dirt on their own hands.

I will springboard off this thought. I think one of the things Remember Me does is not only elevate, but also deepen the human condition. This is just as important. Elevating and deepening. Deepening is driving into the heart of it, making it profound. It is a very internal thing. It is a place where you encounter and accept pain and suffering. Elevating is lifting up, raising up, supporting, perfecting.

Deepening and elevating are not exclusive and humans need both, need to do both.
Elevating is pointless without depth. I think one of the things Remember Me does is not only elevate, but also deepen the human condition. And it is never too soon for that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Article references:

1) “Reacting to Remember Me: an Interview with Screenwriter Will Fetters”, by Brad Brevet.March 16, 2010. http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/reacting-to-remember-me-an-interview-with-screenwriter-will-fetters This post finished with 355 comments from viewers.

2) “Controversial ‘Remember Me’ Ending: Dividing Critics and Audiences”, by Bryan
Reesman. March 15, 2010.http://www.moviefone.ca/2010/03/15/remember-me-ending-controversy/20This post attracted 441 comments.

3) IMDb: Remember Me message boards: Various threads.

4) “Robert Pattinson on Life beyond Twilight”, by Jenny Lumet. Details. March 2010.
http://www.details.com/celebrities-entertainment/cover-stars/201003/twilight-star-actor-robert-pattinson-remember-me

USA Today - Remember Me Mention

2011-09-07T02:20:00.002-04:00

In relationship to the upcoming 10 year anniversery of 9/11, USA Today looked at some of the films which dealt with aspects of the attacks.

Remember Me was included and producer Nick Osbourne commented on the film's ending.

Films such as Oliver Stone's World Trade Center (2006) and Paul Greengrass' critically lauded United 93 (2006) found respectable audiences while fending off criticism when sensitivities were still high. The criticism even stung films with a tangential relationship to the attack, such as 2010's Remember Me. The Robert Pattinson drama featured a 9/11 surprise ending, which took a "drubbing" says producer Nick Osborne.

"Everyone was, to a certain extent, terrified of doing it," Osborne says. "It's such a sensitive topic. But it was the right ending."

To read the rest of the article, please click here:
USA Today.com

Tyler’s Journal in Remember Me: A New Look

2011-06-23T23:55:00.002-04:00

~by jessegirl~ June 19, 2011

The journal has always been important to me, for all the reasons above, and it was one of the first things I wrote about. After a whole year, I felt I had to revisit it, and this is the result. I think, in a way, all my RM articles are, in their way, tribute diaries, but public ones.

-jessegirl-

On the surface we see Tyler Hawkins—played brilliantly by Robert Pattinson—as a rebellious, spoiled guy, who smokes, drinks, parties and sleeps around, a guy who doesn’t seem to care about anything, who is prone to fist fights and destructive behaviour. And that is a view held by some viewers who haven’t bothered to delve deeper. Underneath that though, is someone struggling with long-standing trauma and grief, a young man filled with doubts, fear and insecurity. He is a lost soul trying valiantly to find his way back to a meaningful life. How do we know this? Largely, the key to discovering Tyler’s character is through his journal.

Cope

The journal started—one assumes—as a way of coping with the loss of his brother. Paradoxically, the journal is a way of bringing Michael’s death closer, in order to learn what Tyler can from it, and also a way of distancing Tyler from the horror of the death. A fourteen year old boy is traumatized by finding the body of his brother, especially the factually horrific specifics seen as a result of a hanging suicide. Writing deflects from those grotesque forensic details. Through the process of writing, the trauma is subdued, muted.

Loss provokes introspection, which, in turn, uses the written word to acknowledge what cannot be spoken. One must, after the death of a loved one, communicate with that one, and with oneself. If one has an artistic outlet, music or visual art, which might be the route one takes, to express the inexpressible. But for those with few skills in those areas, words must do, must be enough. And so, Tyler ‘talks’ to Michael. He ‘journals’.

Tyler needs the journal, to process his loss, to ponder and help him understand, and ultimately forgive Michael. The journal is the way to make the journey. Grief is a journey.

While Tyler merely audits his outer life—school, job, relationships—he engages fully in his inner life. There, he takes on gruelling studies, constantly testing himself, always pondering at the deepest level. That’s the place Michael must have gone, to the place where one goes to find the meaning of life and to act on what one finds there. Tyler, too, has to delve into himself and act on what he finds there. And it is one scary place, like the underworld.

Tyler has to find Michael there and like any seeker in the place of the dead, Tyler is afraid. He knows only that he must find his brother, rail against him, question him, find answers, cry for him, love him and forgive him. Tyler knows all that and it is extremely daunting work. It is the great unknown, and Tyler goes there fearing only that he might not be able to return. And it is excruciating work, like cutting an open wound, exposing his worst terrors. Tyler goes anyway. He has to. He is compelled. He must ferry himself down into the depths of his soul, explore, find answers or some resolution, and then come back up again. Or die. It is exactly that significant. It is a matter of life and death. And when, or if, he returns, he will be transformed. Nothing short of that will allow Tyler to return and engage in ‘real life’ again. The journal is his tool, his pen the pick axe which will excavate these inner recesses of his soul so that he can bring them to light.

Combat

When someone kills himself, we always ask, ‘why?’. We think about how much he had going for him. For Michael, it could have been: young, smart, talented, rich. Then we shake our heads, perplexed. But the outside is never the inside and Tyler is trying to figure out what was inside. What made Michael think life was not worth living? And was he right? If not, then what makes life worth living? Existential doubts and questions abound. Michael gave in to despair, gave in to his Dad.

But Tyler fights. He figures himself out through the journal. It is part of his fight, his internal battle, just as his argument with Charles in the boardroom is his outer fight, his attempt to find hope. Tyler tests himself against his Dad all the time, sometimes with foolish, self-righteous bravado and other times just to establish his own identity (‘I don’t want you to bail me out.’)

So the role of the journal has mutated, become a way of discovering his identity. Tyler asks: ‘Who am I?’ He fights to separate himself from his brother and his father. Part of the battle is expressing his anger to Michael. ‘Why did you abandon me?’ ‘Why didn’t you stick around for me?’ Admitting the anger verbally is taboo so his feelings are expressed in the diary. Tyler fights for identity, meaning and understanding.

Comfort

Have you noticed how Tyler carries the journal around with him, how he secures previous pages with elastic bands, how it is there with him in the office that day? Tyler needs his journal like he needs air. It is not with him when he dates or visible when Ally is around, but otherwise it seems to be constantly present, like a security blanket. Sometimes, its presence makes a statement and other times it just reminds us it is there. Here are a few ‘sightings’.

1. The first day we see Tyler, he goes to the cemetery with the journal bulging from his jacket pocket.Charles says to Tyler: 'You couldn't wear a tie?' as if to point out Tyler's disrespect of the ceremony. Tyler was, yes rebellious, but only disrespectful to Charles, not to the ceremony. Because the presence of the journal, right there, is his 'tie', his connection to and respect for Michael."

2. From there, he travels by subway, goes straight to the diner to write. Food stays uneaten. You must not eat in the Underworld.

3. At the diner again, he writes and we hear his voiceover about castrating the father.

4. When Aiden tries to interest Tyler in the campaign against Craig using Ally, Tyler is sitting on his bed writing in the diary, then rolling up older portions. We see a half-eaten sandwich there, which he later trashes; again, he’s too preoccupied to eat. Aiden takes the journal for granted.

5. When Tyler leaves a sleeping Ally a note—Please don’t leave. I’ll be back—he uses a piece of his distinctive journal paper. This was to hand, no doubt, but nevertheless, it brings the journal back.

6. He goes to the diner again, the usual place. The journal comforts him and he has established a routine around it. When he meets Janine there, she teases him, wondering if he’s writing anything bad about her. ‘Not today’, he answers. So, the presence of the journal in Tyler’s life is well-known.

7. When Tyler returns from this outing, his note to Ally is propped up on the night table while she waits for him. He then explains where he went. Tells her about how he writes to Michael and had to tell him about her. This makes her part of his inner circle.

8. Labour Day weekend, at the beach, Tyler is once again, writing. So, he writes inside and outside on the dunes too.

Significantly, Ally doesn’t hesitate to toss the journal aside and tackle him.
Tyler is not upset about this, just laughs and kisses her. But there he was, writing even when he’s near his lover.

9. We see the older parts of the journal, those Tyler left at home, when Neil reads them. These private thoughts are strewn across the bed in violation, instead of curled neatly into protective rolls.

10. The last morning, Tyler leaves Ally in bed again, and takes the diary to his Dad’s office with him. It is his comfortable old shoe and a work in progress, never finished. The camera follows the journal as Tyler handles it before he leaves. Pattinson’s long fingers work it with an elegant grace, which transmits, already, the tranquility that is Tyler’s that morning. By the time the camera gets to the sleeping Ally, we are so mellow. Like the camera work.

11. In his father’s office, he puts the journal on the desk, and reaches for the mouse.

As Janine and Tyler view the screensaver, you can see the contrast between the old, battered journal, which looks like it has been in a war, and the pristine, clean, new desk top. There it is, making its own statement on Charles’ desk. Tyler sat down in his father’s chair and claimed a temporary spot on the desk for his journal, but this is not supplanting the father. It is just that Tyler finally feels comfortable in a part of his Dad’s world.

12. And then, at the end, we sight the journal in the rubble while we hear the last voice in the film, Tyler’s, giving us his last sweet words.

Confidential

We don’t know what is in the journal except when we hear Tyler’s voice overs, for example, when he addresses Michael about the son castrating the father, or when he tells Ally he needed to tell ‘someone’ about her. Aiden doesn’t ask, or, probably doesn’t want to know. Janine doesn’t really pry when she asks if she’s in it. Tyler’s inner circle knows about it but respects his privacy. As with many diary-type journals, Tyler’s is very private. That gives him free rein. He has a place where he can be uninhibited, a place to work through everything without censure.

Getting a good look at it would be getting a look at not just his thoughts, but also his soul. He sits there in the diner, a regular, and the waitress brings him something and instructs him to ‘eat’. You don’t think of things like eating when you journal that way. Time gets away from you because you are totally absorbed. The world around you, even in a busy diner, with people talking, coming and going, with the noises of cutlery and dishes, with the cacophony of sounds from the city street intruding, all is just white noise. You don’t hear or see it. You are in the underworld with your brother, groping in that dark, hoping you can hear his song, him strumming his guitar. You are in a private world. That is your real world and the outer one recedes in a blur.

Neil Craig’s intrusion into both Ally’s journal and Tyler’s was violation, never mind its purpose. Imagine Tyler coming home to find Craig not just inside his home, not just inside his bedroom but inside his journal, inside his most private life.

How much did he read, I always wonder? How much does he know of Tyler’s ranting, his secrets thoughts and uncensored feelings? For this adversary to violate his privacy like that must have mortified Tyler. For this man to see his soul, his wound, his sins. In point of fact, Neil must not have seen the newer entries, the part Tyler took with him to the beach, and the parts where he, no doubt, reveals his love for Ally. So Neil has a partial view, and judges based on that. And Tyler doesn’t defend himself because he feels guilty.

For in that journal would be things only meant to be between Tyler and his God. The journal is the womb for Tyler’s transformation. In it is the fragile embryo which must stay hidden until it can survive the light of day. It contains nothing less than the new life which will come out of Tyler’s grief. It is that powerful. However, Neil’s discovery is the impetus for Tyler’s confession; he’s been found out and he cannot avoid it anymore. Time to ‘man up’. Ready or not.

Commemorate

Writing in the diary is also a little ceremony; every time Tyler does this he commemorates the life of his brother. The journal is a place of honour. It is where the memory of Michael is realized and stored. We honour lost loved ones in various ways, with reverent acts and rituals. We etch their names onto granite on grave stones, create videos and other visual memorials, and so on. We tell each other stories. We know, instinctively, that we must never forget.

But we also honour them with our pain. The absence of the loved one hurts, and we record our suffering in journals. This is, in itself, a way of paying tribute to the dead. The last mark their presence left on you might be pain, but even that is a tribute. If that loved one didn’t matter, then it wouldn’t hurt so much to lose them. And if he or she didn’t make a difference in our lives, we wouldn’t try to remember. The journal is not just Tyler coming to terms with his brother’s loss, with the manner of it, with his own feelings about mortality; it is his way of remembering Michael. The dead always shout: “Remember me. Don’t forget me. I lived. I mattered.”

I’ve said this before, elsewhere. Tyler is a touchstone, leading us to the kind of remembrance we all need to cultivate. The film leads us to those deep places within ourselves which we need to find, in order to become more fully human. That’s why we can’t get this film out of our heads. Exploring those places within ourselves can be painful, but this excavation is necessary. “It is important that you do it, because nobody else will.” And no one else will do it the way you do it. It is significant that after Tyler dies, what we see in the ashes is the remains of his journal. It did its work for him, but through it, he still speaks. He knew, in the end, that his brother could hear him, so he told him the most important things: “I love you. God, I miss you...And I forgive you.”

Cinematic Device

The journal is employed as a strong cinematic tool, and almost becomes, as the cliché goes, another character, although, strictly speaking, it’s just the inner side of Tyler. Allen Coulter and editor Andy Mondshein cut from Tyler writing in the diner that first day, to the scene where Caroline waits on the steps for her ride to school. The continuity comes from the voice over: Tyler from his diary, “Michael, you know what day I’m looking at...at twenty-two...Mozart...and Buddy Holly was dead.” Here the journal is the thread that joins the scenes, while letting us know what Tyler is thinking.

On another visit to the diner, the voice over comes as he writes. He expresses his anger at his father, talks about Greek mythology and about sons castrating a father with a scythe. In the next scene, when Tyler picks Caroline up from school, he gives her a book of Greek myths. She asks what happened to his face. He jokes that it was a threshing accident. What a weird outmoded choice of words. But a scythe was used in harvesting, which references back to the previous scene, which talks about castration. The book and journal tie together these two scenes.

In general, the voice overs, words coming from the journal, are the device used to state Tyler’s philosophical and emotional thoughts. The crystal clarity of Tyler’s last thoughts voiced over the ash-covered remains of the diary is a triumphant expression of spirit over death, and it is what we are supposed to take away with us. Those words were the last spoken in the film, and show the progress Tyler made on the journey he was on. We know an object like the journal would not have survived the firestorm from the blast at all; its presence on the ground is purely symbolic, and very effective.

The journal was also just a prop. Think about it. It wasn’t a lap top; it was just an old- fashioned, simple, portable tool. By the end it looks like an object from the past. Not new and shiny but old and worn. The leather cover was very distressed, to indicate long use. Scraps of coloured paper or post-its were stuck inside it, as was a napkin and paper clips. These showed that Tyler must have thought of things to add to the diary when it wasn’t with him. It was a messy, wonderful object.

Props are funny things, part of the pretend world, physical illusions. At one point the producer reminded Pattinson to write in the journal, and, in some interview, the actor joked that he had scribbled pornographic poems in it. Who knows? The prop was auctioned off, as were some of the rolled up bits. I confess to a real hankering for that diary, that stupid bit of illusion, in all its sullied glory. All symbols are so much more though. It really is, for me, in some way, a magical object, handled by a fictional character. A real yet false thing. Still magic.

*********

Original Version Posted on http://

regardssurlefilmrememberme.blogspot.com on June 6, 2010

regardssurlefilmrememberme.blogspot.com

Original Version First Posted on www.rememberme-film.com on June 13,

2010

Tyler's Journal

Remember Me's Message - Remember the Fallen

2011-06-02T07:37:00.000-04:00

Bin Laden is dead. We remember the Lost Loved Ones.

-jessegirl- May 27, 2011

Anderson Cooper360, on May 3, 2011, released a message from the newscaster, which essentially went back to the idea of remembering. Bin Laden’s crimes should be remembered but his name should not be. It is the names of the 3000 fallen that should be remembered. Hearing his newscast prompted me to this place again and I will quote below, as accurately as I can:

“It’s a relief to know he’s gone...Someday...cannot give Bin Laden the satisfaction of speaking his name... “I keep thinking of him now buried at sea, wrapped in a white cloth in a weighted bag, slid into the icy ocean...think of his body sinking into the sea, disappearing into the dark depths of the oceans...this man who terrorized so many for so long has simply disappeared. The ocean is a very big place and in the end Osama Bin Laden was a very small man. There will be no grave marker for him, no place for fanatical followers to come and pay their twisted respect. He is gone. We cannot forget or should we ever forget the horrors that this man unleashed but as the months and years pass, I hope that his name is hardly ever uttered. I hope his picture disappears as well... I hope it’s not the wasted life of this mass murderer we remember; I hope instead we recall the lives of those we’ve lost. I hope we remember Leon Smith Jr. (firefighter)... In the years ahead I hope it’s their names we speak, not Bin Laden’s. I hope it’s how they lived their lives we remember...I hope we remember all they did and all that they never lived to do.”

Anderson Cooper360, on May 3, 2011

(On AC360.com you can learn about those who died.)

The unfortunate thing is, we cannot remember the 3000 names. We do not remember the names of the victims of 9/11, of other massacres, whether large or small. We do remember the names of the perpetrators. I will not list any here. We know them. But we do not, nor can we memorize or know those whose lives were lost, who, in this, were innocent. That is just the way memory works. There are too many.

It is ironic that after Anderson Cooper made that statement, subsequent coverage on his show and other CNN shows covered Bin Laden and his demise in great detail from all angles, the murderer’s name repeated over and over. Should the picture of the dead terrorist be released, or not? What role did Pakistan have? How would the terrorist network continue? And so on. The focus was still on Bin Laden.

But the paragraphs I quoted reminded me that it has come full circle. It has brought back, for me, Will Fetters’ idea, the original inspiration for writing the script of the 2010 film Remember Me. To remember the fallen, through the story of one such imagined life, Tyler’s. Remember Me was never about Bin Laden or his terrorist network. It was always about remembering the individual lives lost, imagining what their families’ lives must have been like afterwards. And that’s where the focus should be.

For Will Fetters it began with the obituaries, The Portraits of Grief, New York Times "Portraits of Grief" the mini-biographies of those who had fallen on Sept. 11, 2001. It was from those that the writer had derived inspiration for his work, originally titled, Memoirs. (Therefore those who criticize the climax of the film as being a ‘twist’, ‘tacked on’, are sadly mistaken.)

The whole point of this movie was to remember an individual life. Granted it was a fictional character’s life, but this allowed everyone to become immersed in his world and come to love him, and then, grieve for him when he was suddenly snatched away in the most shocking way. Tyler died in the center of the first firestorm when the plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. And that gave us all a chance to grieve. That is the genius of the film Remember Me.

Some of us took that rich source of emotional catharsis and were grateful for this chance. Others, to this day, felt cheated, angry, and manipulated, which are the common reactions to shock. These responses are still dividing viewers. But they tell us more about ourselves than they do about this film. About whether we allow ourselves to feel and to be open. About how grief affects us. Tyler at the window, the climax, is the culmination of all we feel about Tyler and all we will feel at his loss. If we felt nothing for Tyler—which I find an odd response—we are bound to feel manipulated. If we came to love him—and Robert Pattinson’s nuanced, authentic performance worked to make this happen—then we were put in the imagined position that those who suffered real personal losses that day felt. There was no better way to drive the point home.

Fetters was only 22 years when he wrote the script; he was a young man who shared with his protagonist, idealism. And in Remember Me, Fetters intended to force viewers to confront the horror of 9/11 in the most personal way, the only way possible for those who did not lose loved
ones there.

As I have written in another article, Tyler Hawkins, the imagined one, is the symbol, the human face of tragedy. [Tyler in Remember Me: the Human Face of Tragedy ] Through his story we come to understand the event intimately. We, the viewers, are brought to it by being shocked. And this is what happened on that bright Tuesday morning, almost ten years ago. Shock.

Some viewers recoiled, as the slap in the face was felt as an insult rather than the wake-up call Fetters meant it to be. Perhaps it worked too well, that shock. Shock makes one angry. The stunning force of it infuriates. And then comes the pain.

This is what is must have been like, Fetters’ story shouts. This is only one imagined life, cut short. This is an unfinished life. This is what 9/11 did. This is what hatred and terrorism did. There are 3000 stories, real ones, and 3000 families and their friends who have suffered immeasurably because their loved ones‘lives were taken.

If, for a few months, we walked in the footsteps of any of the 3000 who were brutally murdered that day, until their demise, we would get to know them. None were perfect, as none of us are. The fictional Tyler was not either.

One effective way we can remember the fallen—we who did not suffer the fate of a personal loss that day—is by remembering the symbol, like Tyler. Also, I have read a book one wife wrote about her loss and that kind of story can bring it to the level of a real person lost. Abigail Carter wrote eloquently of her husband, Aaron, who fell that day. If I can take the liberty of quoting her:

“Perhaps the nature of his demise had itself been the lesson: life needed to be lived and not spent at work. Life was not all about making money. Life was about those that you love. Life was short.”

(page 121)

This sounds a lot like the message of the film, or part of its message. Abigail goes on to walk us through her own grieving in detail, and shares with us her husband Aaron’s likes, his foibles, his character. For anyone wishing to remember a real life, her book is a good avenue. [The Alchemy of Loss: A Young Widow’s Transformation, by Abigail Carter. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto: 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0771019074; ISBN-13: 978-0771019050]

Every one of those 3000 families, the mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, children, all felt the giant fist in the face that day, the gut-punch which rendered them stunned, obliterating rational thought and giving way to an enormous, never-ending silent scream, a scream which has, in the almost ten years since, receded to an ever-present growl, but which threatens to overwhelm and be let loose anytime.

Families of the fallen held in front of them photos of their loved ones. Have you seen this man, this woman? Remember him. Do not forget her. The genesis of the movie Remember Me, its raison d’être, comes from such things, -one person holding a photo of his loved one. That person wanted the loved one to be remembered. And that’s what Will Fetters wanted when he wrote this story. Remember the fallen.

Remember Me Walking Tour

2011-04-11T13:18:00.001-04:00

For those of you going to New York City this week-end and for all others who can't make it that particular week-end, here is the Remember Me Walking Tour in mobile form. While the site will show up on your computer as a regular blog, it will show up on your phone in the easy to read mobile format.

The entries come complete with a description of the location, some still from the film and walking / subway directions to the next location on the tour.

The Gandhi Restaurant, Noguchi cube and the Paris Theater are included as side trips and there is an entry for Eddie's Sweet Shop too!

Click here for the link to the site:

Remember Me Walking Tour

Key:

A - Pearl Street Diner - 212 Pearl Street

B - Noguchi Red Cube - in front of 140 Broadway

C - Tribute WTC Visitor Center - 130 Liberty St

D - New York University

E - Strand Book Store - 828 Broadway

F - Gandhi Restaurant - 350 E 6th St

G - Union Squ/14 St Metro Station (not station in the film)

H - Alice in Wonderland Statue - Central Park (East side)

I - The Oak Room - at the Plaza Hotel 1 West 58th St

J - Paris Theater - 4 West 58th St

K - Hilton New York - 1335 Avenue of the Americas

Remember Me Walking Tour - Saturday April 16

2011-04-03T03:00:00.000-04:00

Do you live in New York City or are going there for the Water for Elephants Premiere weekend? Do you want to visit some of the sites featured in Remember Me? If you answered yes to these questions, this walking tour is for you!

@Twilidiot (Gretchen) is setting up a tour which incorporates locations from Rememeber Me. This tour combines walking, subway riding and a possible horse drawn carriage ride! And part of the fun will be meeting other Remember Me fans!

If you are planning on taking part in the tour, please make sure to sign up here Remember Me Movie Fans at Meetup.com

Don't worry if you can not make the entire tour, you can take part in as much as you have time for!

Itinerary

8:15 Meet up at NY Hilton if desired or at Pearl Street Diner (20-30 minutes from Hilton Diner)

9:00 Pearl Street Diner for Breakfast (1 hour)

10:00 10 minute walk to World Trade Center site

10:10 September 11 Memorial (30 min-1 hour)

11:10 20 minutes via subway or bus to Washington Square Park/NYU

11:30 NYU (30 min-1 hour)

12:30 10 minute walk to The Strand

12:40 The Strand - we could all spend forever in there, I think
Food in here somewhere

1:40 20-30 minutes from The Strand to

2:00 Alice in Wonderland Statue in Central Park (30 min)

2:30 Wander through Central Park on foot, take a horse-drawn hansom, tired can hop on a bus or cab

3:15 End at The Oak Room Bar at the Plaza which is four blocks from the NY

Hilton

6:00 WFE meet-up at NY Hilton

Robert Pattinson’s Hope for Remember Me and the Critics Who Listened - A Remember Me Anniversary Post

2011-03-14T20:54:00.025-04:00

For Remember Me's one year anniversary, Jessegirl has written a wonderful article that looks at what makes Remember Me a success. And gives a nod to the critics who "got it".
by Jessegirl March 15, 2011

"I dedicate this piece to my son"

“What has to happen for you to consider this film a success?”

Our own administrator, Kat, posed this question to Robert Pattinson at the NY premiere of Remember Me. This was actually a perfect question. What do you think Pattinson answered, amidst cameras flashing, handlers around him, fans shouting for him, a line of interviewers stretched out before him? Did he say, good box office, great reviews, awards? No, he said:“...If people look at it with an open mind then I guess that’s as much as you can hope for.”Possibly Pattinson was thinking about the climax and its inherent problems. But I think that, even though he had to come up with answers to questions off the cuff, he hit it dead on. His hope was so reasonable and modest.
Pattikat33: NY premiere red carpet interview of Remember Me, March 1, 2010

It’s all in the attitude one brings to it, isn’t it? And a year of closed-minded critics driving public misperceptions has taught us that. Let me tell you, if the open-mindedness Pattinson hoped for had come to pass, the landscape of the past award season would have been different.

What Critics should bring to their task

An open mind: Without this, we shouldn’t give heed to anything a critic says. There must be some trust in the film to begin with, receptivity to the intent and execution. If, after watching and finding the movie wanting, so be it. But, just as doctors have a dictum, which is, “first, do no harm”, so critics should bring the right open-minded attitude.

Heart: If one holds one’s emotions in check, perhaps fearing a loss of objectivity, one’s perceptions cannot be reliant. If a film doesn’t move one, that is telling.

Perspective and Knowledge: We rely on the extensive knowledge of film history and technique from critics. With this they can put the film into perspective for us. They can make us aware of break-through concepts or tradition or similar acting techniques. (For example: She has the vulnerability of Monroe in The Misfits yet also shows us the tough worldliness of Sarandon in Bull Durham.)

However, what critics often do is pick out the derivative elements and neglect the
original way that tradition is carried forth. For example: Just because Pattinson’s performance in Remember Me might have elements of James Dean’s tortured persona, doesn’t mean Pattinson hasn’t brought his own original voice to his character. And it might mean that he has bested Dean. Critics must be fair in these comparisons. I’m sure that sometimes critics’ knowledge base intrudes in a biased way and that it actually gets in the way. If they are too jaded or cynical to watch with fresh eyes, then they are useless.

Honesty: If critics don’t enjoy certain categories of films, they should make it known. If they have a preconceived bias for or against a certain movie star or genre, they should let their readers know. Also, they should either pass on reviewing it because they cannot shed their biases, or should give the film/actor/director more of a chance than they normally would, a handicap, if you will.

I believe some critics put down Remember Me’s ‘ending’ not because they were insulted, but because they wanted to be perceived as insulted on behalf of a public they assumed would be. They were dishonest about their personal response.

To Know or Not To Know

One thing that has not abated since the film first came out is the endless discussion, debate and conversation about all aspects of it. Many critics lambasted the film on the basis of the ending alone. The ‘ending’ has been and still is a polarizing and contentious part of this discussion of audiences as well.

One of the debates is whether viewers should know beforehand what constitutes the climax of the film, or be kept in the dark. Should the marketing machine have revealed it, to stave off possible negative critical reaction? Or would knowing ‘spoil’ the impact?

Having read a good many comments from viewers on various posts, sites, boards, this is a question difficult to answer for others. But if that is so, the difficulty with marketing remains.

Not long ago this question was posed on this site as a discussion post. One commenter had this to say: “...the quality of the film itself creates the impact. We could have had a 9/11 film that wasn’t nearly as powerful.” [Heidi6572] She feels that the ‘combined talents’ of those creating the film and the excellence of the result determine the force of the impact. Absolutely, so true. I wrote the following.

Needless to say, I had my take on it, which comes from my personal experience. I had known something, very vague, which someone referenced, but this was long before the film came out and I forgot. Then, while watching, even with the hints and clues scattered throughout Remember Me, I was paying attention to the characters’ stories until near the end—the elevator I think—and then I was shocked, taken unaware. If I’d known beforehand, the whole experience would have been different.

However, and here’s the kicker, multiple viewings never minimized the impact for me. So, while for the first time I think you should be a blank slate, the power seems to stay with repeat viewings anyway. In some ways, it becomes stronger as it seeps into you.

In the final analysis, Remember Me is like a stealth bomber. It quietly, subtly, sneaks up on you, under the radar, and then it shatters you. The extraordinary tenderness which distinguishes its delivery makes the impact of the climax that much more explosive, internally.

Everything is shattered, blown apart, and so you watch again so that you can see it, in rewind, put back together again. And then disintegrate again. And made whole again. Devastate again. Heal again. Extraordinary.

When I wrote this, it was a spontaneous answer to the question. Now, I’m struck by my metaphor, which I used without calculation at the time. The plane, under the radar, shatters the world. This was, of course, what happened in real life that day. But the difference is the ‘tenderness’ and the quality of the storytelling up to the climax. That is what distinguishes this film, and why it delivered a gut punch, not necessarily only the specific event. We are led through the prickly thorns and the sweet roses of the relationships and think we are in a garden and then, bam, we stumble off a cliff which has come out of nowhere.

It starts with attitude

It takes an open-mind; Pattinson was absolutely right. And it takes a receptive heart. I always end up saying something about this because the heart can only be fully engaged if one is open-minded enough to trust the process. And good films require the heart to be actively involved.If any viewer, whether critic or a member of the public, holds herself, himself, back, keeps emotions in abeyance, then their perspective cannot be relied upon. The objectivity they might strive for in doing this eludes them.

We all get out of a movie what we bring to it. If we bring perception, understanding,
fresh eyes, and open mind and heart, then we’ll be tuned in to a good film. We’ll actually see it for what it’s worth.

Critics Who Listened

Please note that some of these are critics whose voices are known, others are not. I have chosen the quotes strictly because they cast an open-minded and positive eye on the film and because I just liked what they said. Any emphasis added is mine. The source for most of them is www.rottentomatoes.com Oh, and I’ve left out comments about Pattinson’s and de Ravin’s acting because I covered the critics in my piece on those actors. Check there if you’re curious.
Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson: Portraying Lovers in Remember Me

Laremy Legel This critic has given an insightful and impartial review. Such perception and attitude should be emulated. Here’s a lengthy excerpt from it.
“...I’m struck by the overall ambition and courage of the film. Massive themes are considered here: love and loss, the role parents should play, sibling support, fledgling relationships in college, the role of blunt trauma in the building of character. True, that’s a lot of emotional weight, and the key for enjoyment here is to buy into the overarching sincerity of the film. By taking a risk, and actually being about something, Remember Me becomes vulnerable to those who would lash out against perceived melodrama in movies. But we’ve got to take back the streets on this one; we need writers and directors out there taking chances, we’ve got to get away from the paint-by-numbers industry that has become modern cinema...”

“Why see Remember Me? Because you know when you’re watching a drama, you know when you’ve purchased a ticket to a romantic comedy, you’re completely aware of what a date night film is. Movies have been segmented out to every demo, and you never have to see anything even remotely surprising or challenging. The marketing is your warm blanket, soothing you into a life of complacency. Remember Me is challenging in all the right ways, a prime example of the courage directors, writers and actors should bring into the arena....”

“There’s a scene in the film where Robert Pattinson attempts to blow out some birthday candles. He’s an avid smoker, but we can’t know if he blows out half the candles with one breath to be a jerk or because that’s simply all the breath he has. We’re asked to consider the motivations of each person, and where we land probably holds a mirror up to our own temperaments. Little moments like that are prevalent in Remember Me, moments when we’re slightly off balance, moments infused with a deeper meaning the audience needs to stretch for, moments of true artistry in filmmaking. We get many pretenders, but Remember Me earns every scene.
Film.com

Roger Ebert, a distinguished voice, came out against the ending, but recognized a worthy film. “The fact is, Remember Me is a well-made movie. I cared about the characters. I felt for them.” He came out on the negative side of ‘the ending’ however, in a way which showed me that he did not get it.
Chicago Sun Times.com

Brad Brevet, whose interview with Will Fetters provoked many thoughtful and emotional
comments from readers, touched on the film a number of times last year. “Perhaps the most misunderstood film of the year. ...This movie presented events in a way no
other film has dared to try, the same way we lived it, without knowing and without warning. And I applaud it for having the guts to do so.”

“Remember Me relies solely on the ability of the cast to create characters and relationships you believe in, and for the most part, it had me sold. I cared about the ordeals these people had been through and where their lives were going.” Ropes of Silicon.com

Other Voices:

“Remember Me is a powerful, devastating yet sometimes funny film that serves up one of the most mind-blowing endings I’ve seen in a long time....
“Just prepare yourself for a very shocking film. Overall, the film deserves a recommendation...”
Kevin McCarthy BDK Reviews.com

“Remember Me ends on a powerful note, one audiences may find either sensational or insulting. It’s handled as gracefully as possible, and in its own way, ties up the movie’s emotional themes in a way other resolutions couldn’t.”
Christian Toto What Would Toto Watch.com

“Remember Me is a moving and gentle film about the healing power of love and the indiscriminate agony of loss.”
Brandon Fibbs Brandon Fibbs.com

“Despite its flaws, Remember Me does a nice job of showing how quickly moments can go from important to trivial and back again. And while the aftermath of loss is the movie’s primary theme, there are some light moments...that offer a few well-needed breathers....”
“Your reaction to—and ability to anticipate—the ending will probably determine how much you appreciate the movie.....I found it pulled the story’s sometimes random aspects together in a way that drew Remember Me back to my thoughts surprisingly often.”
Cathy Jakicic JS OnLine.com

“Remember Me is a touching love story, but its broader tale of familial relations packs a greater emotional punch.”
“...most interesting as a study in loss, grief and resolution.”
Claudia Puig USA Today.com

“The film is predominantly about death—homicidal, suicidal, accidental.”
“Yet Remember Me is also about love, and before you roll your eyes, know that it’s one of those rare films that makes what could have come across as treacle and melodrama feel real.”
“...may theoretically dwell in the moribund, but in execution it’s tender, sweet and appealing in its intimate portrayal of relationships both strained and smooth.’
“It’s this steady balance in the script (sometimes sad, sometimes joyful), characters (appealing but flawed, and relationships (butting heads with the ones you love) that makes Remember Me so impressive and, more important, enjoyable.”
Tricia Olszewski Washington City Paper.com

Remember Me are well acted and smartly written. And even if you disapprove of just where the film goes, the story building up to the final climactic twist is moving and real. Remember Me is not a disposable romance that’s getting attention just because Pattinson’s in it. This is a solid film, with minor flaws, and a highly controversial ending.”
Rebecca Murphy Movies About.com

“There is, quite simply, a rather refreshing ordinariness to Remember Me in the unflashy, knuckle-down attention it gives to character development.”
Kimberley Jones Austin Chronicle.com

“Remember Me turns out to be quietly charming and coarsely handsome, a sensitively observed story about young people in love...”
“Its tale skips over all the clichés, except when it touches lightly upon them in order to gently laugh them away.”
“And there’s plenty more that’s entirely novel and delivered with just the right blend of airiness and earnestness, like Tyler’s relationship with his 11 year old sister.”
“I’m not sure if, ultimately, Remember Me works, then, because of how it ends. But I respect Fetters and Coulter for trying it, and for being so authentic in how they get there.”
Mary Ann Johanson FlickFilosopher.com

“Remember Me is a film that tackles some serious problems but manages to do it with a style and maturity lacking in most other romantic dramas.”
“With delicate angst and heartfelt emotion throughout, Remember Me is a wonderful film that deserves your time and attention. Even though the ending will divide audiences, this is a film of incredible subtlety and resonance that will strike a chord with you.”
“Robert Pattinson is in amazing form here...He is an adaptable and very capable talent that really gets to grips with his character’s story and along with an amazing ensemble has created one of this year’s finest films. You really can’t afford to miss this, one way or another you will definitely remember this film for a very long time.”
Jason Entertainment-Focus.com

“Especially remarkable about Remember Me is the chemistry and believability of the various relationships involved in the story.”
“Remember Me will leave its audiences talking about the film hours after the final credits.”
Amanda Bell The Examiner.com Philadelphia

“...this highly emotional journey is all meat. Here, you’ll witness not only fine performances, but be immersed in a story that not only captivates, but touches, teaches and quite possibly, makes us better people as a result. “
“Remember Me is the first great film of 2010. Not to be missed.”
Clint Morris Moviehole.net

“While the characters are all too familiar, how their lives play out is not....In Remember Me, it’s all grey, where even the most stereotypical aspects are given real rationale.”
“The realism in these characterizations makes them familiar not because we’ve seen them so many times before, but because they become like people we’ve encountered through our lives, rather than just people on a screen.”
“There’s always emotion, but he [Coulter] knows you don’t have to show it to make an impact.”
Monika Bartyzel Moviefone.com

Comments about performances, directing, script, music, cinematography:

“The uniformly impressive supporting cast perpetuates the above-average atmosphere, with the end result an engaging drama...”
David Nusair Reel Film.com

“The entire cast is great including a strong performance from both Brosnan and Cooper.”
Kevin McCarthy BDK Reviews.com

“Brosnan, so good you want to see him in every other scene, oozes wealth and
entitlement...You’ll want to root against Brosnan, but it’s too slippery a performance to apply such facile labels. Cooper’s character is similarly tough to dismiss even though he fits a very specific template.”
Christian Toto What Would Toto Watch.com

“Ruby Jerins...she brings a maturity to her performance that feels entirely authentic and proves to be to her character’s benefit as a potential artistic prodigy.”
Brad Brevet Ropes of Silicon.com

“All are terrific...but the real standouts of the film are the newcomers: the very droll Ellington and Jerins...Occasionally you come across an actor who so arrests your attention that you can’t help but bellow their name to anyone who will listen. Jerins is such an actor. The young girl is one to watch, the sort of stop-in-your-tracks talent that comes along only once in a great while.”
Brandon Fibbs Brandon Fibbs.com

“There are no less than four tremendous performances in the film. Robert Pattinson is excellent as the brooding and wounded Tyler Hawkins...Tate Ellington hits all the right notes as Tyler’s quirky but sincere roommate...Emilie de Ravin is perfect...she mixes a softness with a scorched world-weariness to create a compelling woman. Finally, Ruby Jerins is dynamic as Pattinson’s little sister. Really tremendous dialogue helps each of these young actors, but they deserve a lion’s share of the credit.”
Laremy Legel Film.com

“The secondary cast in the film is strong as well, with Ruby Jerins absolutely nailing every scene in which she participates and Lena Olin adding that observable truth to her character’s plight. Pierce Brosnan stands out as the stubborn and formidable foe to Tyler’s wishes, and Chris Cooper-to say the least-delivers on the role of a man who, trapped in his own head, is hurting the person that he loves the most. Tate Ellington serves as the comedic relief which combats oversaturation of dramatic tension, and he does so well. Finally, Greg Jbara, Martha Plimpton, Kate Burton and Peyton List all make significant use of their short time on the screen.”
Amanda Bell The Examiner.com Philadelphia

“...Will Fetters’ first screenplay and I have to say that he did a fine job emotionally grabbing his audience.”
Kevin McCarthy BDK Reviews.com

“...Fetters’s ability to weave in a few other plotlines to make Remember Me about more than the sappy romance.”
Willie Waffle Waffle Movies.com

"subtly crafted story.”
Cathy Jakicic JS OnLine.com

“Fetters gives us sympathetic characters, both in how we react to them and how they respond to each other.”
Mark Dujsik Mark's Movie Review.com

“...I could tell it was the work of a new artist, not because it was amateurish, but because the script shimmers with the sensitivity and meticulous attention to emotional detail that is almost always the hallmark of someone who poured their heart and soul into a project...”
“Deliberately paced (that’s film critic speak for ‘slow’), Remember Me is helped rather than hampered by Allen Coulter’s confident if low-key direction, perfectly capturing a pre-9/11 New York City.”
Brandon Fibbs Brandon Fibbs.com

“Remember Me is sensitively directed by Allen Coulter...”
“The script, a first from Will Fetters, serves the other characters less well. Tyler’s mother needs more fleshing out; his roommate is strictly comic relief.”
Stephen Whitty NJ.com

[speaking about the ending] ”...I have to at least give screenwriter Will Fetters and director Allen Coulter credit for not taking the easy road out. They set up the ending from the very opening scenes, and they follow through to the bitter end, obviously aware of how the ending will split audiences.”
Rebecca Murphy Movies About.com

“Remember Me is strong in many areas including acting, screenplay and music. The music is one of the most foreshadowing and best scores I have heard in a long time.”
Kevin McCarthy BDK Reviews.com

“Accompanying this is a soundtrack which perfectly complements the drama. The score is beautiful and emotionally charged and gets all of the performances together to make a film that heavily impresses from the start. it all works perfectly –the story is given time to breathe and it never feels forced or fake. The personal journeys of each of the principal characters feel genuine and help make the film stand out as a great character study against the backdrop of a beautifully lit New York.’
Jason Entertainment-Focus.com

“The production is clean and polished, with Marcelo Zarvos’ understated though persistent score and Jonathan Freeman’s meticulous cinematography bringing notable sparkle to this heartfelt drama.”
Kirk Honeycutt The Hollywood Reporter.com

Remember Me's One Year Anniversary - Part 2

2011-03-13T05:49:00.008-04:00

Samsy-marie sent us a Remember Me collage that includes a still of Tyler and her tickets from the four times she saw Remember Me in the theaters.

Thanks Samsy-marie!

Next, we have three slideshows of Remember Me stills with some of the more memorable quotes from the film.

Remember Me's One Year Anniversary - Part 1

2011-03-10T20:33:00.031-05:00

It's hard to believe that it has been 52 weeks since Remember Me was first released in theaters. To note that occasion, we are posting some of our thoughts and images about Remember Me and, of course, why we love it!

When we were making Remember Me we all felt we were making something special. A year after its release I still believe there's something special about Remember Me. I don't think this will be a film that fades with time. Like everyone in the film business we all move on to our next projects; it's as if we nurtured this movie into existence and now it's everyone else's to either love, hate, debate, wrestle with, etc etc - it has to stand up for itself now.

But if there's just one takeaway for me, it will be the letters and emails I 've received from the parents and siblings of young men and women who died in the prime of their lives. It's humbling to know that this film connected with them in the way it did and if it helped them process the tragedies they've been through even in the smallest way then I couldn't have hoped for a better accomplishment for the film.

Nick Osborne - Producer

A poem that evokes thoughts of the film.

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

~Christina Georgina Rossetti. 1830–1894

Thanks Kathy!

A wonderful piece of writing that let's us feel how it was when we first watched Remember Me.

I could hardly wait until the time to leave for the theater to see Remember Me. I remember sitting in my seat in the theater and as soon as the movie started, my heart started beating wildly. The same feeling I had as a kid when I was fortunate enough to see Elvis Presley in concert; the loud music, the beating drums before Elvis ran on stage. This was the same feeling I had when the camera zoomed in on Rob sitting on the fire escape wearing the red tee shirt. I was mesmerized by Rob throughout the entire movie and the profound grief I felt when the movie ended was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I went back to see the movie again and again until it left the theater. Remember Me is a movie I will never forget.

Thank you Jane!

Next, we have a lovely video about Tyler created by Imna. Thank you!

The next piece of beautiful artwork and writing was done by Rum from our sister site Regards Sur le Film Remember Me.

Remember Me has many facets and many moods, and is pervaded with a lot of sorrow and sadness, but for this anniversary post, I wanted to think only of the beautiful love story at the heart of it, so I've chosen a sweet, happy, carefree moment between Tyler and Ally. Today I wanted to remember Remember Me for its tenderness. Sometimes we forget it, but we must cherish every little precious moment of love in our life, because at the end of the day, love is all we have.

I loved Remember Me because it is the first movie that I can Remember that made me think of family friends and even strangers in a different light. It shows that People deal with change differently. I love the dynamic of the movie and the characters. and I cried so hard at the end. It was a wonderful and beautifully made movie. Well done all! I took the day off from work and went to see it. Twice.

Thank you chele!

FP at our affiliate Thinking of Rob.com has let us post "Tyler's Journal". This series of artwork hi-lights quotes that Tyler wrote in his journal along with pictures of Tyler and the people in his life.

This one is the original voice over ending from the script.

Thanks FP!

Remember Me and Robert Pattinson get Jeopardy Shout-Out

2011-03-09T20:58:00.005-05:00

Yesterday on Jeopardy:

Category - Famous Roberts

Answer - "He won the teen movie award not for twilight but Remember Me"

Question - "Who is Robert Pattinson?"

Remember Me Discussion - Outside the Film

2011-03-04T00:53:00.003-05:00

Is there an underlying theme of violence in Remember Me? How does violence affect each of the characters.

Remember Me Premiere Flashback - Remember Me Countdown

2011-02-28T01:55:00.003-05:00

One year ago today, Remember Me premiered at the Paris Theater in New York City. Here is a re-post of some of the things that we were excited about and looking forward to last year on this day.

Reason #11

Rob at the premiere for his first film outside the Twilight bubble - Twinkle

I'm excited about the chance for Rob to really carry a movie with his own name. It will be a big moment in his career. - ChasingCarsforFun

To see Rob coming into his own and stepping out the Twilight shadow - steph_h456

It's his first movie outside the saga. - PinkStarlett84

I love seeing his career develop - VAgirl

Watching Rob change people's minds about what he's capable of - Twinkle

Seeing Rob promote a movie he actually really likes. - Calendos

Screencap Source:
Thinking of Rob.com

Remember Me Artwork

2011-02-27T15:16:00.003-05:00

Our sister site, Regards Sur le Film Remember Me has given us permission to post these two beautiful pieces of artwork featuring Tyler and Ally!

Tyler

Don't Be a Stranger

Credits:
deviant art.com - blueabyss17404
Tyler's portrait
Ally's portrait

Thanks Rum!

In respect to the artist, please do not re-post.

Date for Remember Me Premiere on Showtime

2011-02-27T01:03:00.003-05:00

Remember Me will premiere on Showtime on April 15th at 9:00PM EST. Make sure your taxes are completed early and tune in to watch it again!

For their full viewing schedule, please click here:
Remember Me on Showtime

The Unofficial Remember Me Site Needs Your Help!!!

2011-02-24T21:41:00.004-05:00

We are coming up on the one year anniversary of the release of Remember Me, and we need your help to create a special post celebrating the occasion!

We are looking for anything that shows and/or references why you love Remember Me. Fan art, a paragraph of text, an essay, a photo or a screencap, a video. Anything you can think of!

Please email me what you create to admin@rememberme-film.com by Thursday March 10th and make sure to come back on Friday the 11th to see what everyone has created!

Remember Me Discussion - Outside the Film

2011-02-17T23:45:00.002-05:00

Have you ever ordered dessert first? Is there anything that you have done that is similar to this?

Remember Me to Premiere in South Korea

2011-02-12T14:07:00.004-05:00

Remember Me will be premiering in South Korea on Febuary 17th as announced by the Korea Herald.com

To view the official Korean site, please check here:
Remember Me Korean Site

Thanks to Spunk Ransom.com

Remember Me Rated Top 10 Chick Flick

2011-02-10T23:06:00.004-05:00

Screen Junkies.com has listed Remember Me as one of the top 10 "chick flicks" of 2010.

Remember Me – Featuring career-defining performances by Emilie de Ravin and Twilight star Robert Pattinson, this film about two tortured college students who find love and comfort in one another while enduring painful losses remains one of the ten best chick flicks of 2010, despite its lukewarm reception by critics and audiences.

Do you agree that Remember Me was a chick flick? Or do you think that the other relationships in Tyler's life make the film appeal to a much larger audience?

To read the rest of their list, please click here:
Source:
Screen Junkies.com

via
Spunk Ransom.com

Ally and Tyler: Lovers in Remember Me

2011-02-09T12:33:00.002-05:00

Jessegirl's fabulous companion piece to Emilie and Robert - Portraying Lovers in Remember Me takes an in depth look at the character of Ally and her relationships in the film.

This is a companion piece to: Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson: Portraying Lovers in Remember Me

~by jessegirl~ January 28, 2011

Lovemaking:
No, Remember Me is not really a romantic drama. But the lovers are still at the center of it and their relationship impacts central themes. Ally and Tyler, like all good lovers, touch each other in ways deeper than just the physical, and it is that which helps heal them both.

The first time they make love is in the center of the movie. (Using the screencaps as the way to gauge time, at #4452 out of approximately #8734, Ally and Tyler become physically intimate.)

For some reason, this seems significant to me. Ally has taken refuge at Tyler’s after her father hit her. There she stands, leaning against a door frame, all sexy and soft after her nap, mussed blonde hair, a little bare shoulder and a lot of bare leg exposed.

Tyler lets her know Aiden is not there and waits for the implication to register. She nods and gives Tyler an interested but still uncertain look. He approaches her very slowly, at first with his hands still in his pockets. He waits for her reaction, stops, resumes, stops.

Then he continues his slow move towards her, as if she is a skittish animal, but also because this is a big step for him too. Steps. Tyler knows this is no toothbrush girl for him and that this sex will be meaningful. He, too, is apprehensive, so each step he takes is pondered. His advance is drawn out. I’ve never seen a slower approach. It serves to build anticipation. As their eyes lock, his walk across that tiny room is already foreplay. Once he has a bead on her, he looks down, breaking eye contact because she’s already his. She, however, hasn’t taken her eyes off him. He looks up again and they are only a foot apart, but still he waits, coming at her with quiet and riveting intensity. Even in profile one could see Tyler was part predator, part vanquished, all sexually-charged. Did a pin drop? The soft, padded steps of a big cat slowly enclosing his prey, but, oddly, anxious of what he will reveal, of what he will give.

Their relationship had changed when he showed her his tattoo and entrusted her with information about Michael. He’d exposed his wound to her. This was big, and done so well by both actors in the film. That was when they knew they had something more meaningful, when they stopped the teasing, the banter, the tests. That was when they were willing to take a bigger risk. Therefore, when Tyler takes that slow walk to her, he is agreeing to exposure. He already knows Ally demands a lot from a man and he is ready. So, acting on pheromones and faith, they make love.

The actual love-making scene is PG-13 all the way, and with not much use for modesty patches. It probably got no more final footage than the time it took Tyler to move across that room.

Their morning after sex is suffused in a gentle amber glow, filmed from above, and shows such tenderness. We now know they’ve cemented their physical union.

Ally
Who is Ally Craig? Ally is the first character we see and also the very last one. Fetters has called her our guide. I think Tyler is the greater guide in the film, but, yes, Ally guides too. [I have devoted a whole piece to Tyler. See: Tyler in Remember Me: The Human Face of Tragedy] Now let’s look at Ally a bit.

Where she comes from?
One wonders how or whether Ally filled the absence of her mother for ten crucial years of childhood. There is no evidence of any other motherly figure in her life. Instead, Ally becomes a partner to her father. These two have clearly established a practical routine and their symbiotic relationship works for them. She puts a pill into his morning coffee, and whether it’s a vitamin or a prescription medication—for stress?—she does it so casually that we know it is part of the daily routine she and her father have.

Neil actually retains control when he says he’ll drive her even though she just told him someone else would, and one wonders how many other people, Ally’s friends, he has kept from her. Just how much is he isolating her from others? He wants to keep her close, not just out of a need to protect her, but also so he won’t be alone. He is standing in her way and Ally strains at the bit. The interesting question is why Neil himself has not moved on, not become attached to another woman at some point during those 10 years, someone who could relieve his loneliness and also be at least a motherly influence on his daughter? Could one imagine Neil on a date? Perhaps the same guilts Tyler and his Dad feel about Michael have imprisoned Neil, but he doesn’t mind staying there because of the comfortable set up with Ally.

The absent mother
So, Ally, relates to her Dad as a partner, not as a child. She has become this strong, independent young woman. Still, one wonders how she survived without a mother. What makes Ally such a strong person? Ally has had no substitute maternal figure in her life, but Tyler and Charles have. Although his own mother is desperately damaged by the loss of Michael and it seems that this has hampered her ability to parent, other women seem to mother Tyler in various ways. Janine does so, and even the waitress in the diner does. That seems to indicate many women might mother him on the fly, at any time.

Also, Janine looks out for Charles’ welfare constantly and is his shield, his protector against the outside world, against his own son if need be. Push to shove, Janine is in Charles’ corner.

And, of course, Ally is a nurturing figure for her father. The males have mother substitutes, but not Ally. So she becomes the nurturer.

Ally nurtures, supports, rescues. It is her love—partially—that rescues Tyler, wakes him up, brings him back to life. Tyler does need to be bailed out, even though he denies it to his father. He needs to be bailed out of incipient despair. His father knows only how to use his financial resources to get Tyler out of trouble. Ally, however, gets to the heart of the matter, partly by forcing Tyler to step outside his comfort zone and deal with her no-nonsense way.

Ally, Ally, Ally...arguably the strongest character in Remember Me, is extremely resilient. First, after her mother’s death. She picks herself up after Neil hits her, and she does not stick around because she will not be a victim. Then she slaps Tyler, and leaves, after finding out about his betrayal. She demands more from the men in her life. Only when they demonstrate that they will give more, does she return. As Coulter says, “Ally doesn’t take shit from anyone”.

And, the ultimate resilience, in the context of the story, is how she deals with Tyler’s death.

Although everyone in Remember Me–except Aiden—is wounded by grief, Ally is the most resilient. Neil is a real handful, with major grief and anger issues. Then along comes Tyler, the lost soul, caught behind the bars of his grief, guilt and anger. This is one high maintenance guy.

One could speculate that her mother’s death brought about Ally’s career plans, that she is determined to make the world a better place by focusing on criminal justice social work.

Ally is studious, has career plans, unlike Tyler. We see her speaking up in class. We see her reading at the student hall when she first meets Tyler. She is reading on her bed when she should be getting ready to go on her date. Tyler reads and works in a bookstore because he likes books, and he writes, in the journal at least. And it must be reiterated that that journal is one powerful tool for him, necessary. [I covered its importance in: Tyler’s Journal] But we know he is not focused on studies at all.

Ally is also fun-loving though. The bathtub and panda scenes show that. Furthermore, it is the first time we see Tyler really having fun. He’s actually in the moment and enjoying himself. She teases him (pretentious name).

Tyler lets Ally in. That's significant. It means, among other things, that he trusts Ally with his beloved little sister and with his broken mother. When introduced to Tyler’s family, Ally folded in.

She engaged his mother in dialogue—‘second member of the family I’ve done dishes with’—and had a conversation with Caroline aimed at winning the young girl over. Caroline accepted Ally but, did you see how she subtly looks her over first? Checking her out. Was she good enough for Tyler? Ally gives Caroline a story about her mother, about what she shared with her. Ally is skilled enough at finding a way into Caroline's world by finding an anecdote about art which not only reaches out to Caroline's world but also reaches inside to Ally's store of memories about her mother. So Ally, her Mom and Caroline are joined. Cool.

And the way Ally was handling the conflict between Tyler and his father at the Oak Room demonstrated her propensity to keep the peace. However, in that scene, the men were too focused on their long-standing antagonism to benefit from it. Ally becomes the bridge, the connection, the peacemaker between many of the other characters. She is the ally of all of them, in a way. The dove of peace.

The second sex scene, the up-against-the-wall, no holds-barred, violent and desperate grab, kept viewers transfixed. There is so much in the lovers’ lives that culminated in this concentrated passion. I won’t analyze it all. But the scene does so many things, some emotional, some symbolic. The big symbol here is the Picasso Amnesty poster. I have examined this in a previous article [Bars and Birds: Prison and Freedom in Remember Me]. In so many ways Tyler is a prisoner, behind the bars of this grief, guilt, rage, and numerous conflicts. He can’t find a way out. He is, symbolically, behind bars.

So, Tyler comes back from a discouraging argument with his father in the boardroom. He is frustrated that his efforts at breaking his father down seemed to fail, and feels rejected by the parent he needs so much. Tyler also feels impotent and unloved in a fundamental way. Ally sees him stumble around, so wounded she exerts all her nurturing power to soothe him. She sees in him a great, suffering beast she wants to caress and calm. He wants that, but he also needs to release his flood of impotent rage to prove he is a man, to exert that power sexually. This is really primal stuff. As Tyler leans his head on the wall in defeat, Ally puts a hand on his shoulder. When he turns to her, we catch a glimpse of the Picasso poster. Then the lovers embrace violently, groping at each other as if that were the only sustenance for them in the world.

What will it take to free Tyler? A number of things, because it’s complicated, but Ally is key. Her strength and love save him, wake him to new possibilities. So, when you look at the poster think of Tyler as the prisoner, staring out desperately from behind those bars. Part of Tyler’s journey is towards freedom. One of my friends and fellow blogger came to a great insight on this poster, independent of my musing. As Tyler is the prisoner, Ally is the dove of peace. She rescues him from the prison of grief which he has created for himself, from his lost confusion. Notice in this screencap she is snuggling up to Tyler, her hair dove-like, feathered softness. Not herself a damsel-in-distress, in a kind of role reversal, she rescues him.
[Thank you, “WhyistheRumalwaysgone”] And Tyler is staring like the prisoner in the poster. He is not yet free, because other forces are at work, but he holds the ‘dove’ in his arms.

And then later, Tyler must confess. Prisoner indeed. He does, and Ally leaves him.
But she does return to support the family after the bullying incident left them hovering around a hurt Caroline. Ally joins Tyler as he sits on the front stoop, smoking. He doesn’t look at her because he is so depressed and overwhelmed with all that has gone on and asking for forgiveness is, damn it, hard. Tyler only says things like: “I know you didn’t come for me”—which we know she has—and “You’re amazing.” Ally, out of camera focus, just listens, her face revealing her changing emotions.

This scene is very minimalist. These two are navigating their way through unknown terrain, stepping carefully, not making any grand gestures of either contrition or forgiveness, but are slowly, very tentatively, moving towards reconciliation. He can’t look at her, he’s so scared. She tries to make eye contact but it’s hopeless. They don’t know how little time they have left.

Ending
The shot of Ally smiling on the subway had been imagined by Fetters and Coulter before filming started. They knew how important it is. The fact that she is riding the subway, physically going somewhere, suggests that she is ‘moving on’. She is. However, her demeanour shows us that she is a changed woman because of Tyler. And the ghostly image of her mother means that her mother’s spirit is still with her, that she is still connected to her.

When Tyler leaves Ally that last morning, they are both smiling, both have spoken the crucial words, their happiness trailing in his wake as he leaves, and we are content. Let it end there. But it does not. Tyler goes on to sit at his father’s desk to complete his contentment. His smile is so tranquil. We want that for him. All is well. But it is not. And when we finally know it is not, and Ally knows it is not, it ends. But it does not. Until the same serene smile is on Ally’s face, it will not end. She needs to sit on that subway to retrieve some measure of acceptance. And we want that for her. All is not well, not without Tyler. Not ever. But it is the end. And we have seen the lovers smile. And we want that for them.

Remember Me on Showtime

2011-02-09T01:54:00.002-05:00

Remember Me will premiere on Showtime in the US this April. The exact date is still TBD. Excellent news and a chance for more people to be exposed to this wonderful film!

Another Project for Will Fetters

2011-02-07T23:53:00.004-05:00

Will Fetters has written the pilot project for Georgetown, which has just been picked up by ABC. The drama deals with the young people that are working with and for the powerful people in Washington DC. No word when the show will premiere.

Congratulations to Will, who is also listed as a co-executive producer.

Source:
Deadline.com

Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson: Portraying Lovers in Remember Me

2011-02-06T12:02:00.005-05:00

In her newest insightful article Jessegirl looks at Emilie's and Rob's wonderful performance in Remember Me and how Tyler and Ally work as a couple.

This piece is a companion piece to one that will follow shortly entitled "Ally and Tyler - Lovers of Remember Me".

~ by jessegirl~ January 27, 2011

Script:
It all began with Will Fetters’ script. By the time it came to Emilie de Ravin, producer, director, and actors had already been persuaded of its quality. In an interview with Tony Toscano, Emily stated that she couldn’t put the script down, which was unusual for her, and she said it flowed. So she, too, was won over. It all, always, begins with story and script.

Casting:
Apparently a totally different sort of character had been imagined initially, a woman with Latin origins. The search came down to the wire with only Emilie’s character not yet cast only weeks before filming. In her video audition, Emilie demonstrated the spark and fire the filmmakers had been looking for and which was lacking in the others who tried out. Pattinson had a hand in this final cut. Finally, Tyler had his Ally.

Emilie has stated that she didn’t know anything about or of Pattinson beforehand. One can only imagine her shock when confronted with the effect of his fame.

Working Conditions:
Emilie didn’t even know she was entering the fray, but in the summer of 2009, when shooting in NYC, the Pattinson phenomenon was intense. Some ‘Robsten’ fans, who want Pattinson and Kristin Stewart to be a couple, disliked Emilie because they believed the rumours that she was dating Pattinson. These fans didn’t want her showing up at the Eclipse premiere. Of course, Kristen Stewart is maligned too, just because of her close connection to him.

It seems many fans are way too invested in Pattinson’s private life. To some he needs to be single, alone—presumably so he is available to them?—and others somehow care which woman he dates. Also, it is assumed he should not even make films which require him to make love with women. This is insanity.

Perhaps fans have always felt so emotionally involved in their idols but, with twitter, facebook, fan blogs and websites, message boards, etc., now available to them, many fans make their voices heard, no matter how irrational, rude, crude, malicious, or hate-filled. Suffice it to say that the 21st century is proving to be a mine-infested field for stars as big as Pattinson. And god help their hapless co-stars or significant others. With actors like Pattinson, Stewart and de Ravin, who guard their privacy, who wish to pursue their craft but have no desire to be celebrities, this has become a difficult situation.
Look what happened to Pattinson on the first day of shooting Remember Me.

Thereafter there was a virtual phalanx surrounding him while walking to and from set. Emilie would walk some distance behind, with one aide, undisturbed. It seemed like a humorous little parade. I only know this because I’ve seen the pap footage, which is ironic. Ah, the summer of ’09.

Coulter, de Ravin, and Jerins all reported on the difficulty of shooting with both fans and paparazzi so close by, often just out of camera range. During the beach scene, one resourceful and determined pap came out of the water to get the money shot, Emilie and Robert laughing together. One wonders how many cinematic adjustments and re-shoots had to be made to keep the intruders out of the scenes. And, indeed, the actors had to be extremely focused, especially anyone filming with Pattinson, including the young Ruby Jerins. So although Pattinson bore the brunt of this, having these forces present was difficult for everyone involved in filming, from actors to crew. It speaks to their professionalism and talent that they were able to produce such good performances in this situation. [For more on Pattinson’s involvement in Remember Me, see: Cast Spotlight - Robert Pattinson in Remember Me Part 1

Performances:
One of the hallmarks of Remember Me is the believability of the performances, pretty much all of them. First of all, although the main cast came from all over the world, in general, their American accents passed muster. Pattinson and de Ravin both were convincing. Although I’m no expert on the finer points of specific accents, like Queens, de Ravin shed her very distinct, broad, native Australian for an American voice. To the untrained ear she sounded right. Indeed, some of those working on the film were astonished when she was out of character and used her native accent. They hadn’t known she was Australian.

When we watch the development of Ally and Tyler’s relationship, it seems so organic, and the actors both delivered the right pitch. Their performances resonated and drew the audience in because Emilie and Robert brought Ally and Tyler to life with seemingly effortless ease. Emilie mentioned a number of times the ‘organic’, ‘natural’ feel of the script, which, no doubt, aided them in finding their voices—as Pattinson said—and developing their characters.
The relationship between Tyler and Ally feels genuine rather than contrived. [David Edwards The Daily Mirror.co.uk]

Viewers are drawn into the film’s various story-lines because the script and actors made it all seem so real. There was no trace of Claire from Lost or Edward from Twilight. It was only Ally and Tyler. I have written at length about Pattinson’s portrayal of Tyler. [See: Robert Pattinson in Remember Me Part 2 - Living Tyler ] Let’s concentrate on Emilie’s work a little bit now, and with how the two actors’ interact.

When Tyler approaches Ally in the student union with his line about a sociological survey, she is not at all taken in. She puts him off first thing—“You’re already bothering me.”—and, at first, teases him by calling herself Anonymous. Emilie’s facial expressions convey Ally’s scepticism and suspicion. As Tyler elaborates—he has to because she doesn’t give him an in—with talk of foam fingers and demographics, she sizes him up and tests him (“Who else are you going to ask?”). She outright lies about her age, to put him off. Finally, she lets him in .

In an interview with ClevverTV, Emilie said Ally is guarded because of her past, and, that it’s hard to let people in. That’s interesting because Tyler has been the guarded one all along. He’ll allow a host of women to entertain him—like toothbrush girl, the Miami girls, etc.—but only in a mild and apathetic way. Letting Ally in is big.

Emilie and Robert’s timing and the way they played off each other in this scene, and others, is dead on target. The pacing was generous, which lent credibility and allowed the actors to ease into the scenes, just as real relationships usually take time to evolve.

Some would call it slow pacing, meaning boring, but because nothing was hurried, it felt like Ally and Tyler were really getting to know each other. In this way, viewers could absorb the process of two people falling in love, not just the highlights. Most films gloss over everything. In them, it takes so little for characters to fall in love: the ingredients are sexual attraction, a few games and titillating smart-ass dialogue, altercations for sass and vinegar, some sexually-laden moments, and viola – Love! And because it happens so fast, it is so predictable.

Some of these same elements are in Remember Me but are not handled stereotypically. The pacing helped Emilie and Robert to breathe life into their interactions in the most ordinary way. Hard to put my finger on it, but Ally and Tyler seemed to be really attentive to each other and these characters seemed both ordinary and original. The performances Emilie and Robert gave were so very believable.

In one critic’s opinion: The couple’s relationship ebbs and flows, and mostly in realistic rhythms. The duo has strong screen chemistry, powerful enough to shoulder past the inevitable final reel fracture. [Christian Toto.What Would Toto Watch.com]

On their first date, at the Indian restaurant, Ally continues to challenge Tyler. I examined Robert’s performance in my piece on him. Emilie’s expressions and line delivery are also fascinating. Here Emilie’s Ally dares him to object to her dessert order.

After a perplexed Tyler gives the waiter his order and looks back at her, she still has that look of challenge as she states that she eats her dessert first. Emilie has this young pixie face which she uses to great effect here, very child-like, yet almost pugnacious too.

And Robert gives a gamut of facial expression in response to her asteroid speech, which is priceless. Emilie’s line delivery and expressions capture the quirky provocation, the test Ally puts Tyler through. Tyler finally capitulates to her oddity when Ally says, I’ll share. She has completely thrown him again, which is precisely what Tyler, the lost soul, needs. The actors’ repartée, their physical responses to each other in this scene, were a well played delight, -like a dessert first. (I dare anyone to find James Dean anywhere near Robert’s performance here.)

When Ally is just about to leave in the taxi, she rebuffs Tyler’s attempt to kiss her. Emilie worked with pouty lips as she watched his reaction, and Robert’s eyes were down, dejected. She pursed her lips even more as Robert finishes the line about the panda having more of a chance with her than he does. Tyler, by now, is one confused boy. Then he watches the taxi leave. Robert had his hand to his mouth, the other loosely crooked on his hip, perplexed, trying to figure out what happened.

I could analyze Emilie and Robert’s portrayals scene by scene, but you get the gist.
Jumping to Tyler’s confession, we have what some might consider some morose James Dean moments. But Robert’s performance never reaches the level of hyperbole Dean’s often did; it is more nuanced. As Stephen Whitty remarked: James Dean certainly did okay with it—dangerous bad boy—but Pattinson smartly tweaks his own persona... [NJ Star Ledger.com]

Here again, Robert uses his body and its language shows us a hesitant—terrified—and ashamed young man who shrinks his lanky frame by leaning defeated against the wall and who keeps looking down or away from Ally, afraid to face her, to confront the look he’ll put on her face.

Now Ally is confused, as Tyler spills the beans little by little, prodded by her questions. Now Emilie’s face goes through various bewildered expressions. When the truth hits Ally, Emilie’s nauseous reaction was visceral. Well done. By this point the audience is so invested in these lovers that their pain saddens. By then, Ally and Tyler, as Emilie and Robert have given them to us, are ours.

The last moment in the film, played out to Zarvos’ heartbreaking and uplifting final track, is Emilie’s. While she rides on the subway, having found new courage, Ally smiles. This mirrors Tyler’s tranquil smile when he watched his family photos scroll by on his Dad’s computer.

The first time I saw Remember Me, that smile annoyed me. Why? Because it was too soon. Only two minutes after the shock. How could Ally smile so soon? Of course, it was implied that for Ally some time had passed. And she was ready. Ally’s smile is luminous.
Only an image offering that precise sustenance could have the visual heft, the potency, to help viewers cope with the emblematic stunning image that has been burnt into the brain--- Tyler at that window.

Emilie, helped by a face already angelic and lovely, delivered this final shot beautifully.
It was perfection.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Appendix: Some Critics’ Takes-

Here I will deal only with critics’ comment speaking to de Ravin and Pattinson’s acting, and I will leave out negative reaction (which can be found on rotten tomatoes.com if anyone is interested). There have been many positive reviews. In point of fact, many of the negative reviews had more to do with Remember Me’s ending than with the acting.
So, regarding Emilie and Robert’s performances:

The Couple:

-“There is little doubt that Pattinson’s magnetic work as the protagonist plays a significant role in cementing Remember Me’s mild success, with the palpable chemistry between his and de Ravin’s respective characters ensuring that the film is at its best when focused on their charming, easy-going banter.” [David Nusair. Reel Film.com]

-“...playing opposite Emilie de Ravin...and the two have great chemistry.” [Rebecca Murphy Movies About.com March 12, 2010]

-“Their courtship is a sensitive, well-acted progression through stages of mutual trust and Tyler’s gradual rediscovery of his own real feelings...” [Roger Ebert.Chicago Sun Times.com March 10, 2010]

-“where most films about young love somehow manage to feel neither romantic nor sexy, Pattinson and de Ravin are so genuine that I felt in love with them as a couple. They’re sweetly adorable, never annoying or cloying. [Mary Ann Johanson FlickFilosopher.com March 210, 2010]

-“...Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin present a connection that gradually betters through the course of the movie – parallel to the progression of the relationship.” [Amanda Bell The Examiner.com Philadelphia
March 10, 2010]

-“The scenes between Pattinson and de Ravin exude genuine charm. One wants these two to get together. They are likeable without being saccharine.” [Kirk Honeycutt. The Hollywood Reporter.com]

-“The romance at the center of the film, performed brilliantly and credibly by Pattinson and Lost star de Ravin, is one of the rawest, realest, and most unforced couplings in recent years. It works brilliantly.” [What's Playing.com.au]

-“...the film features solid performances from Pattinson and co-star Emilie de Ravin..” [Bryan Reesman. Controversial Remember Me Ending Dividing Critics and Audiences.Attention Deficit Delirium.com March 15, 2010]

-“Robert Pattinson hands in an accomplished performance here full of substance and worth. ..he manages to handle the complexities of Tyler Hawkins perfectly...He is supported beautifully by Emilie de Ravin who manages to make Ally Craig more than just a love interest....reminds us all that she is a capable actress with an ability to raise her game when called upon. The two share an organic chemistry that easily convinces us that Tyler and Ally are a believable couple.” [Jason Entertainment-Focus.com March 31, 2010]

Emilie de Ravin:

-“...the big reveal is de Ravin, a young talent with a tomboy charm and great inner strength.” [Amy Nicolson Inland Empire Weekly.com]

-“...de Ravin has intensity, emotion, hurt and happiness that comes through on the screen perfectly.” [Willie Waffle Waffle Movies.com]

-“Emilie de Ravin is perfect as the potential love interest for Pattinson. She mixes a softness with a scorched world-weariness to create a compelling woman.” [Laremy Legel Film.com March 11, 2010]

-“Emilie de Ravin...is sympathetic and low-key as Ally, but also unassumingly captivating.” [Dustin Putman Dustin Putnam.com March 9, 2010]

-“De Ravin is luminous and offers a character who is independent, smart, and assuredly individual...” [Tricia Olszewski Washington City Paper.com March 12, 2010]

-“This is as much Ravin’s film as it is Pattinson and she shines just as brightly.’ [Nick Staniforth Britfilms.com
July 30, 2010]

-“And de Ravin...delivers a refreshingly honest performance as a young woman dealing with love and loss.” [Rebecca Murphy Movies About.com March 12, 2010]

And Robert Pattinson:

-“Robert Pattinson delivers one of the richest and most weighty performances of any actor this year.” And “Quite simply, Pattinson was an eye-opener in this film.” [Moviehole.net Dec. 2010]

-“Bottom Line: A strong romantic drama in which Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin really shine.” [Kirk Honeycutt. The Hollywood Reporter.com]

-“Pattinson’s turn as the forlorn, love-struck and appreciably human Tyler in Remember Me is the role that’ll turn the young actor from a movie star into an actor.” [What's Playing.com.au]

-“He [Pattinson] is able to deliver the calm as well as the storm when necessary in this movie, and he captures the intensity of his character’s wildly emotional and physical responses to his circumstances.” [Amanda Bell The Examiner.com Philadelphia March 10, 2010]

-“Robert Pattinson is in amazing form here...He is an adaptable and very capable talent that really gets to grips with his characters’ story and along with an amazing ensemble has created one of this year’s finest films.” [Entertainment-Focus.com]

-“Pattinson....can, in fact, act and can carry a film that has nothing to do with vampires...his performance in Remember Me makes you wonder where this guy’s been hiding...” [Rebecca Murphy Movies About.com March 12, 2010]

-“With any luck, the actor’s naysayers will be silenced after they take a gander at his convincing, even magnetic work in ‘Remember Me’” And “As for Robert Pattinson, he is in full command of his leading role and never falters.” [Dustin Putnam Dustin Putnam.com March 9, 2010]

-“There are no less than four tremendous performances in the film. Robert Pattinson is excellent as the brooding and wounded Tyler Hawkins.” [Laremy Legel Film.com]

-“Here he gives depth and feeling to a stale character type, the brooding loner desperate for a personal connection.” [Christian Toto What Would Toto Watch.com]

-“But R-Patz shows he can act, standing toe to toe with the fine Chris Cooper...” [Grant Rollings The Sun.co.uk]

Photo Sources:
MrPattinson.com

Other Sources:
Reel Film.com
Movies About.com
Chicago Sun Times.com
FlickFilosopher.com
The Examiner.com Philadelphia
The Hollywood Reporter.com
What's Playing.com.au
Moviefone.com
Entertainment-Focus.com
Inland Empire Weekly.com
Waffle Movies.com
Film.com
Dustin Putnam.com
Washington City Paper.com
Britfilms.com
What's Playing.com.au
Attention Deficit Delirium.com
Moviehole.net
The Hollywood Reporter.com
What's Playing.com.au
The Examiner.com Philadelphia
Entertainment-Focus.com
Dustin Putnam.com
Film.com
What Would Toto Watch.com
The Sun.co.uk
NJ.com

Remember Me Discussion - Outside the Film

2011-01-29T02:04:00.001-05:00

"The script was imbued with a consistent and timely theme, namely: what happens when a bolt out of the blue collides with and shatters our well-ordered world? How does one survive these unexpected and inexplicable shocks? And how does it alter us as human beings? ~Allen Coulter

Is this one of the reasons that this film resonates with so many?

Remember Me Discussion - Outside the Film

2011-01-22T23:38:00.004-05:00

"I can't deal with this brooding, introverted shit anymore man." ~Aidan

Critics complained that Robert was too brooding in the role of Tyler. Did they latch onto this line and run with it?

Do you agree that Tyler brooded too much or were the other aspects of his personality that were ignored by them.

Remember Me Discussion - Outside the Film

2011-01-15T03:06:00.003-05:00

After the short hiatus,I'm going to try something a little different with the Remember Me discussion group. Questions will deal with the film outside of the actual movie. Let me know what you think!

Do you think that the negative reaction to the ending of the film would have been lessened if the 9/11 aspect would have been alluded to in the marketing? Or,do you think that knowing beforehand would have lessened the impact of the film?

Remember Me - One of the Most Profitable Films in 2010

2011-01-14T13:28:00.009-05:00

When Remember Me first came out, alot of people were saying that it was a flop because it didn't set the box office on fire (a la Twilight numbers). But we all knew that that sentiment was totally incorrect and that Remember Me was quietly plugging along doing respectable business, both in the US and especially internationally. This little film did what quite a few bigger films did not do, and that was to break even at the box office.

Well, guess what? Not only was Remember Me not the flop that "critics" and naysayers were predicting it to be, but it was one of the most profitable movies from 2010.

The Numbers.com site has analysed the crop of 2010 and has come up with their list of most the most profitable films for the year.

This week we continue our wrap-up of 2010 by looking at the year's most profitable films. In making this calculation, we took the production budget, domestic and international box office and domestic DVD sales for each movie released during the year and calculated a rough total gross profit for the film. There's just one chart this week, but we think you'll find it interesting.

Remember Me just makes it on the list of 30 films with a comparative profit of $20,996,644. Other films that are included on this list are Toy Story 3 and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

To read about their methodology and to view the entire list, please click here:
Year in Review: Most Profitable Movies of 2010 - The Numbers.com

Thanks to Hsquare for finding this article!!

Remember Me and Inception: Wake up Call

2011-01-09T16:01:00.000-05:00

Our Jessegirl has written a very interesting article that looks at additional layering and bracketing in the Remember Me story. She also discusses her thoughts on the differences between the small Remember Me and the bigger Inception.

In Remember Me the fascinating bookending or bracketing device is used often. For example, when we first see the Hawkins’ family as a unit, it is at Michael’s grave. The last time they come together is also at the grave site, this time Michael and Tyler’s. The first time there was obvious discord between Tyler and Charles and Tyler was late. The last time the family had become a tighter unit, with parents Charles and Diane linking arms. In this instance, it is just a single bracket, a simple way Coulter used to introduce and then leave characters.

I’m returning to the bookending idea, because, the thing is, it has occurred to me during the process of writing about Remember Me, that this bookending device has more layers. If you think of brackets within brackets you’ll see what I mean. Brackets within brackets within brackets. It is intriguing, really.

The film Inception also has layers, dreams within dreams specifically, and in this way can be compared to Remember Me. Yes, the films are very different but, believe it or not, striking comparisons can be made. I’ll get back to this, but first, I’ll explore Remember Me’s brackets a bit.

To me, the penultimate, symbolically-charged bracket is Tyler sitting outside his apartment on the fire escape when we first see him and our last look is of him inside the doomed building with no chance of escape. I have analyzed that particular bookend and most of the other significant ones in a previous article. Beginnings and Endings - Deja Vu in Remember Me

The bracket encompassing all the others contains the opening and closing shots. It is not an unusual cinematic device, but an effective one.

[Opening shot: R E M E M B E R M E letters appear one at a time through the hazy blur as the subway moves along. You move with the car towards the stop, where Ally and her mother are waiting for you.
Closing shot: The subway train carrying Ally speeds up, blurs, as we leave the story.]

The first scene, however, is the opening bracket for a number of closing ones. It is quite marvellous, when one thinks about it. I’ll enumerate them.

1[The subway will take Ally and her Mom underground.
Close: Tyler is on the 93rd (?) floor, far above ground.]

2[The Twin Towers in the distance light up the city at night behind Ally and her Mom as they wait for the subway.
Close: In the climactic scene the Towers are up close, sparkling in the sun.]

3[Ally’s Mom is murdered.
Close: Tyler is murdered.]

4[As Neil carries young Ally down the stairs of the subway, until the screen is black, the old-fashioned 'iris out' cinematic device Freeman and Coulter used deliberately.

Close: Then, we see the Twin Towers standing tall in the sun and as we absorb the meaning, the screen goes suddenly black/blank. Not the same photographic technique, but blackness at the beginning and at the end.]

First, we follow father and daughter down the tunnel created by the camera into the black depths of their mourning, and later, with the Towers blacked out, we begin—symbolically—our own walk down the steps of grief. Here the cinematic techniques themselves are the brackets.

5[The first time we see Neil and Ally together, at the subway, he holds her tightly.
Close: The last time we see them together, on 9/11, they are also hugging fiercely.]

6[Ally is on the subway platform with her Mom.
Close: Ally is on the same platform at the end.]
The significance, of course, is that finally she can brave it again.

7[Ally’s Mom on the subway platform looking into the murderers’ subway car:
Close: the mother’s ghostly image on the platform as Ally rides away on the train.]
The image is only a nanosecond and very faint, but it is there.

8[We see, in the brief scene, the love Ally and her Mom share.
Close: Ally on the subway, her face radiant with love.]
Love is the penultimate force in this film and Coulter has managed to show love between mother and daughter within a minute of film time.

Although the order at the beginning is not precise, all these many bracketed sections had begun with that first fateful scene, and then brackets close one by one, slowly taking us to the end. It’s almost like that aperture is closing in increments with each bracket, until the credits—on black—roll. This is brilliant.
-Tyler above ground at the window]
-The Twin Towers in the sun]]
-Tyler murdered]]]
-The black screen]]]]
-Neil and Ally hug after 9/11]]]]]
-Ally on the subway platform]]]]]]
-ghostly image of her mother when she’ in the subway car]]]]]]]
-Ally’s serene and loving smile]]]]]]]]
-the car blurs past us.]]]]]]]]]

Each bracket is meaningful, usually in an emotional way as well as a symbolic or cinematic one. The viewer concentrates not on the symbols but on the story and its emotions, which is where the focus should be. Symbols hit the subconscious mind and are often only later recognized. But they enrich and support.

The closing of each of these Remember Me brackets is a satisfactory completion. I do not mean a ‘welcomed’ completion, of course, because many of them point to the tragedy and death and heart-ache inherent in this story. But they effectively close a door. They don’t play mind games.

This beautiful tale of love and loss, of loving and grieving, of conflict and healing, nourishes with quiet potency, as all satisfying stories do. In a way, the bookending or bracketing device is just an extra treat, because Will Fetter’s story carries enough weight of meaning by itself. Although most of these brackets are not obvious on first viewing, they support the meaning, and one can feel their impact intuitively.

To be clear:
In Remember Me, the bracket/bookends do not create the meaning; they only support it. I emphasize this because other films, some much lauded, prop up an emotionally inadequate story by using intriguing layers. The film becomes a game the viewer plays, trying to solve the mystery of what is ‘real’. The film is, for all intents and purposes, just an intricate puzzle. The viewer—who must see the film multiple times in order to make sense of it—finds clue after clue, removes layer after layer, in fascination. (The film itself is an attempt to implant the idea of inception in the audience.) And it is fun, I grant you that. But, after everything is removed and the puzzle is solved, the story itself is as naked as the emperor without his clothes. And it is insubstantial. It lets you down because a story devoid of meaning is empty. Your brain has gotten a workout but that’s all. Films like this are poseurs. They pretend there is something behind the curtain.

I am, of course, speaking of films like the wildly popular and acclaimed Inception. I challenge fans. Do the characters engage you? Do you care about them? Or did the concept and the special effects fool you into thinking there would be a jewel in the centre of this maze when, in essence, there is nothing?

Wake up, indeed.

Inception has been called every kind of brilliant. The best films need a heck of a lot more than brilliance to have staying power. The dreamers who are awake, who are dreaming, and so on, (or the dreamers dreaming four levels down), in Inception; the reality that is not, that is, that is not, and so on, may be a brilliant concept, -perhaps, although it is not a new idea at all. And brilliant is not a jewel. It might be glass, mirrors, Escher illusion, incredibly clever.

But a gem of a film, like Remember Me, strikes at the heart. Not without its own cleverness, it nevertheless aims into the true centre of human reality, the heart and soul. And, only this hearth-fire, blazing, nestled deep in the core of our very beings, has true power, the power to make us live. We don’t waste time wondering what is real—or not—we know it. We are engaged at a deeper level.

Inception, on the other hand, begins with the premise of either extracting ideas from people’s minds to gain control, or implanting ideas to do so. These endeavours can not be morally defended. In the end, the issue is one of control, not waking up. The concept of Inception has nothing to do with profound spiritual ideas, as some have said. Why? Because it lacks heart and steals freedom. It is so obvious in the way Christopher Nolan executed his idea.

Unlike Remember Me, so very unlike it. I’m aware that in many ways these two films are apples to oranges, but not here. Nolan’s film is one which abandons heart for cleverness, in the service of control. If you want real feeling, real people, you won’t find them in Inception, but Remember Me is chock full of them. Can we relate to Inception on a personal level? (After two viewing I still couldn’t root for the characters, or otherwise be invested emotionally in them, even though the actors did a good job.) All we can do is try to figure out the metaphysical concept—which is an old one—and feel clever.

In the end, Inception, despite Zimmer’s hefty score, is legerdemain, smoke and mirrors. The story itself is minimal. Furthermore, if we don’t care about the characters, it is all inconsequential.

On the other hand, Remember Me offers, in the most humble manner, emotional sustenance. Its true spiritual message trumps Inception every time. In the end, whether ‘awake’ or ‘dreaming’, what matters is how you behave. Do you strive for love, as in Remember Me, or do you attempt to control, as in Inception? That is the bottom line. Are you elevating the human condition, or cheapening it, to paraphrase Robert Pattinson? This is what is relevant.

Just one last thought, this one about how the way a film is presented shows its attitude to the audience. The attempt to appear profound and layered in Inception was so obvious and was a dare to the audience ('Are You smart enough to get it?' sort of attitude), whereas, in Remember Me, all the symbols, layers, so much, comes across subtly and never eclipses the story, never detracts from that beautiful script Will wrote. There's also an inherent respect for the audience in Remember Me, whereas in Inception that dare covered in a shiny lustre really insults the viewer.

This article is a bit of David and Goliath, and I’m armed only with my sling shot. Inception is in the stratosphere of box office, and critical and popular acclaim. It seems a bit ambitious to bring it down a notch. Meanwhile, Remember Me has only recently been acknowledged by some critics as one of the most misunderstood, under appreciated film of the year, and even they put Inception up there. I’m aware that some readers are big fans of Inception; some might love both films too. But consider my opinions here with the open mind the makers of Remember Me had hoped for—but not received—for their film. It goes without saying that, to guess what I’m talking about, you would have to have watched both films, with an open mind and open heart.

These two films are not in the same league; Remember Me is miles ahead. It is awards season and what I said about it way back in May still holds. Oscars and Remember Me May 26

Inception distracts the mind from its true obligation to heart and soul.
It is not one of the remarkable movies of 2010.
It is not extraordinary.

Remember Me engages the heart and keeps you grounded in the only reality that matters, while it bravely charts new territory in the matter of grief. This is the true undiscovered country.
This film is remarkable.
This is an extraordinary film of 2010.

Remember Me to Premiere On Showtime

2011-01-08T15:47:00.003-05:00

Remember Me is being shown on one of Showtime's coming soon trailers! No mention of the date as of yet, but I will keep you all posted.

Remember Me is I-Tunes UK Movie of the Week

2011-01-03T22:56:00.002-05:00

Remember Me is an I-tunes movie of the week on I-tunes UK.

If you live in the UK, you can rent the film for 99P.

(then run out and buy a copy next morning)

Source:
Spunk Ransom.com

Most Misunderstood Film of the Year - Ropes of Silicon

2010-12-29T17:38:00.006-05:00

Even though Remember Me does not make the list of Brad Brevet's top 10 films for 2010, he does mention it as the most misunderstood film of the year. Mr Brevet gets it and has really supported Remember Me!

Remember Me :

Perhaps the most misunderstood film of the year. People called the ending a "twist" which I guess means any time you're walking around your house and you stub your toe it's a twist because you didn't expect to do it. This movie presented events in a way no other film has dared to try, the same way we lived it, without knowing and without warning. And I applaud it for having the guts to do so.

To read more of Brad's year-end review, please click here:
Ropes of Silicon Top Movies of 2010

To read Brad's original review of Remember Me, please click here:
Remember Me Review

Thanks Sammie!

Remember Me Eligible for Writer's Guild of America Award

2010-12-28T23:52:00.005-05:00

Remember Me is one of the 43 films that are eligible for the 2010 Writer's Guild of America Award for Original Screenplay.

Ballots must be cast by Monday and the list of the final five nominations will be announced on Tuesday.

In order to be eligible, a screenplay must have been written by a WGA memebr and must be submitted to the WGA for consideration.

We here would love for Will to get the credit that he deserves for writing this wonderful script!

To read the entire article and to view the list of all films, please click here:
Variety.com

Source:
Spunk Ransom.com

Remember Me Rated Top 10 Best Film

2010-12-28T23:32:00.005-05:00

Clint from Moviehole.com has rated Remember Me as one of his top films of 2010.

10. Remember Me

Robert Pattinson delivers one of the richest and most weighty performances of any actor this year with his uneasy son and lover at the center of director Allen Coulter’s love letter to 9/11 (yes, there is such a thing).

To read the rest of Clint's post on Remember Me and the rest of his list, please click here:
Clint's Top 10 Films of 2010

The Love Stories of Remember Me

2010-12-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

We are extremely excited to present Jessegirl's latest lovely article explores the different types of love in the various relationships in Remember Me.

by Jessegirl

Remember Me is not a chick flick, dick flick or any other genre film. It is not a love story, but many love stories. Yes, it shows us the delight of Ally and Tyler falling in love as games, jokes, discoveries and secrets spice their encounters. Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson brought authenticity to their portrayals. It was easy to believe them. And I’ll get back to that romantic love later. But Remember Me delivers so many other kinds of love as well. I’ll touch briefly on a series of ‘love in the moments’.

I have talked about the compassionate tone of this film before and that is still the bottom line. So we have tiny gestures of kindness sprinkled through the film. For example, in the diner, we see Tyler totally immersed in his journal, oblivious to every reality except his internal monologue, and the waitress comes by with a plate of food which she puts on the table as she orders him—“Eat something”. Clearly he’s a regular and she’s been employed there awhile and she feels enough tenderness for Tyler to look after him.

All the little moments Janine has with Tyler also indicate an almost maternal caring for him. In a lovely scene in the diner, she interrupts her coffee run to stop by his table while he is—what else?—writing in his diary. Her smile is so very heart-warming and Tyler responds with a delighted sparkle in his eyes and a genuine smile on his face. They both wrap their exchange of pleasantries in a glow of pure contentment, revealing deep affection for each other. This is an example of ‘love in the moments’ in its purity.

Now Les, not shown in his complexity, illustrates what support looks like. He is always respectful of the Hawkins’ private grief, allowing them their space at the gravesite yet standing close enough to Diane to be the presence she needs. When, at the end, the Hawkins visit Tyler’s grave, Les takes a step back, knowing that Diane and Charles need to link arms as parents. At the sweets shop we see this gentle man second Diane’s enthusiastic expression of Caroline’s talent. Then, later, when, after the bullying incident, we hear him on the phone running interference for Diane as he simultaneously brings Caroline a tray of refreshments. At Tyler’s birthday party we only see him silently helping clean up and at the beach house he participates in a family game of charades. Altogether Les is a solid bulwark for his damaged step family, his love offering security.

Then there is Aiden, the irresponsible, live-for-today kind of guy who comes up with a cruel revenge scheme mainly because he is still too immature to grasp the concept of consequences and not—IMO—from maliciousness. Often the clown, Aiden tries every which way to bring his grief-laden friend into the present. Whatever his many faults though, Aiden is there to help Tyler when the chips are down. Not only does he go to the Hirsch home after the bullying incident, but he brings Ally with him, having gone to her home to intercede for Tyler first. He does this when he notices how depressed his friend is about the situation with Ally. Love between friends is complicated, but obviously Aiden loves Tyler.

Love is not just feel-good times putting viewers into their comfort zone. Tainted and damaged people have difficulty expressing love without the filter of anger, impotence or desperation. So we have two old cocks, Neil and Charles, one running hot-tempered and the other cold, but both loving so fiercely after loss that their actions threaten to destroy what they still have. And we have Diane, the mother, desperate to hang onto what is left. So she adjusts Tyler’s collar, pounds the table to get his attention, puts undo pressure on him to act as an intermediary between her and her ex-husband. She brings Caroline every dessert at the art show, to compensate for Charles’ absence.

Charles’ cold demeanour towards his remaining children is terror.

Neil’s over-protective, smothering intrusion into Ally’s life is terror.

Diane’s clingy, needy desperation with Tyler and Caroline is terror.

They are all terrified to lose what they have left and react in accordance with their individual personalities to the impotence of their grief.

This complex film on the face of it seems to begin and end with hatred. We have Ally’s mother violently shot in the subway, and, as a bookend, Tyler murdered in a terrorist attack at the end. But of course the bookends are really love. In the opening scene the first thing we see is Ally and her mother sharing time, the mother twirling her daughter, both of them ‘living in the moments’, their love for each other clear. Then, after the murder, we see Neil, grief-stricken, picking up the wedding ring and then his young daughter, shattered as he could be only if he loved deeply. And the real end of the film, the requiem montage, is all about love. One doesn’t ache, grieve, and heal without the impetus of love.

Grief cannot exist without love and where there is great grief there is great love. I have written about grief from so many angles in other articles and there’s no question that grief is the catalyst for all the action here. It is impossible to understand the heart and soul of this film or of the characters—or indeed of the actors’ portrayals—without understanding the grief inherent at its core. This is such an excellent and rare presentation of grief that what I covered in other pieces had to be said. That done though, I am trying, now, to touch on the love which would precipitate grief.

Caroline and Tyler, siblings sticking together through thick and thin, young and struggling, always sustain each other and have so many loving moments together. Almost every scene with Tyler and his little sister shows how deeply they love each other. I could recount them here but it would be a long list. Theirs is a mutual support. Caroline gives Tyler a wake-up call at the beginning. She insists they have a birthday party for him despite his hesitation about the significance of a 22nd birthday; it needs to be celebrated. This is how she shows him how important he is.

Meanwhile, Tyler protects her, looks out for her, but in a hands-on way. He spends time with her, providing her world with the emotional security all children need as much as the air they breathe. He takes the time to discern the source of Caroline’s pain, asking her questions about the girls. He soothes and comforts her by reading to her in bed in what is, for me, a favourite perfectly pure moment of tenderness. He shares wisdom with her and jokes with her at the Alice statue. When she asks if he’ll come to the art show, he replies, “abso-freaking-lutely!”. You bet he’ll be there for her anytime she needs him. All of this shows that Tyler is the only caring male blood relative who is present for her. Indeed, their relationship illustrates how vital to love being present is.

So many types of love are represented in this film. And there is romance too. This is natural for the young lead characters, given their age. Ally needs it also to become independent. And Tyler needs to be taken outside the realm of his dysfunctional family in order to ‘wake up’, so Ally’s influence is fresh.

Indeed Tyler, the lost soul, stumbles into this relationship with just enough life left in him to grab love when it is offered to him. And, as is the way with love, it heals, empowers, mellows, softens, multiplies. Ally’s unique perspective, her dessert first philosophy, her quirky personality, all intrigue Tyler and keep him guessing. Only with her does he have light-hearted fun, squirting her with water for example, his eyes wide open like a mischievous school boy. A little thing called enjoyment has come back to Tyler via Ally. The sex is full of meaning, the scenes bathed in an amber glow to emphasize the warmth suffusing their encounter.

By the time Tyler sees the screen saver, he and Ally have declared their love for each other and that power alone has softened his attitude towards his Dad. This is not only a good thing, but a necessary one. In a way the screen saver is, at that point, weirdly, both surprise and confirmation. Love has lightened Tyler. His burden is lifted. He all but skips to his father’s office, even before he sees the photos. He has been smiling all morning, even before he sees the pictures. They are just lovely confirmation.

Love has rescued him. Suddenly the veil of grief has dissolved and Tyler can enfold his brother in the embrace of loving memory. Tyler, that last day, is Tyler in a moment of release. Allen Coulter phrased it as Tyler being “released from his battles” [Podcast about Tyler, with Fetters, Osborne and Pattinson. June 20, 2010].

Remember Me shows us a plethora of little moments, so many of which capture, within each small glimpse, love exchanged. Despite what some have said, these moments are not maudlin, but are executed with a fine hand. In fact, much is conveyed with facial expressions and minimal gestures, like when Tyler touches Janine’s arm, or when he approaches Ally so very slowly before they make love the first time. Even the relationship between Caroline and Tyler is devoid of big bear hugs, sloppy kisses or tears, yet none of those are needed for us to be convinced of the deep and abiding love they share.

The stories in Remember Me draw together the characters and show us the good and the loving shining out beyond flawed humanity. They are love stories which can lighten our own burdens, can guide us to be released from them like Tyler was. They show us how to smile all morning long, as Tyler did, and greet the day.

No matter what comes.

Remember Me Listed

2010-12-23T04:15:00.003-05:00

I don't think that anyone here missed the film, but it is great to see it mentioned. Hopefully, some who hadn't seen it before will take the recommendation and see it now.

Yeah, the first line is alittle snarky, but it's the over all thought and mention that counts!

This film, a heartrending relationship drama (it’s both about the rapport between a young couple and also one between a young man and his estranged father) that played to the tick of a 9/11 countdown, proved there’s much more to “Twilight” vamp Robert Pattinson than blank stares, sparkles and tree hopping. Quite simply, Pattinson was an eye-opener in this film. Skeptics need see it.

To read the rest, including the snark, please click here:
Moviehole.com

Remember Me - Massively Underrated

2010-12-22T19:07:00.002-05:00

Laremy Legel at Film.com has listed Remember Me as one of the massively underrated films of 2010.

And if Remember Me had featured Ryan Gosling instead of Robert Pattinson it would have been correctly hailed as great. But people got far too caught up in the ending and Pattinson's celebrity to catch that he was really freaking good in this movie. Definitely worth a watch if you you're a fan of relationship dramas.

Source:
Film.com

More on Remember Me's DVD Sales

2010-12-12T22:36:00.005-05:00

Alt Film Guide.com has written an article that Looks at the relative success of Remember Me's DVD sales.

The Robert Pattinson vehicle Remember Me, which divided critics upon its early March release, has reportedly grossed $11.03m on DVD in the United States, with more than 600k units sold. The source for these figures is a site called The Numbers, which focuses on home video revenues.

To read the rest of their article, please click here:
Alt Film Guide.com

Here are some other DVD vs domestic box office percentages from films that were released around the same time.

Dear John..... 36%
Brothers......30%
The Last Song......24%
She's Out of my League.....29%
Our Family Wedding.....30%
Brooklyn's Finest.....36%
When in Rome......24%
Leap Year......39%
Daybreakers.....41%
From Paris with Love.....53%

Sources:
The Numbers.com
Box Office Mojo.com

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-12-08T01:47:00.003-05:00

Many people have said that RM has a message. For you, what is it?

Remember Me DVD Sales

2010-12-08T01:38:00.003-05:00

Through 11/28, Remember Me has done $11,034,174 in DVD sales!! That translates into 619,652 DVDs sold.

BTW, these numbers do not include Blu-ray sales.

Let Love In

2010-12-03T02:14:00.014-05:00

Today, we welcome a new guest blogger, J. Jacobs, who explores a part of the realtionship between Tyler and Ally. Please be sure to check out some of her other work on My Dog Ate My Blog

J. Jacobs is a blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on Accredited Online Universities for Guide to Online Schools.

Letting your guard down is one of the most difficult things you can do in a relationship, especially if something you've experienced in the past makes you want to build a 10-foot thick stone wall and alligator-inhabited moat around your emotions. However difficult it may be to open up to a significant other, it is something upon which any strong relationship depends. No one wants to be in a romantic relationship with a stranger, so if you'd like for your relationship to thrive, you'll need to let your partner know who you really are and where you're coming from. Of course, this is a lot easier said than done.

in Remember Me (2010) Tyler and Ally are both bringing very disturbing family histories to their relationship. It is hard enough to watch your parents grow apart without knowing that the conflict stems from your brother's previous decision to end his life. Also, imagine trying to get through each day without being haunted by the memories of your mother's murder on a subway platform. These are the family histories that Tyler and Ally brought to their relationship, yet it was still able to blossom and grow. What was important in Tyler and Ally's relationship was not the fate or the physical attraction that might have brought them together at the beginning, but the fact that they came to know each other as real human beings. Tyler and Ally were able to open up to each other, and in the process, learned valuable lessons about what is important in life.

No matter what you've gone through, you can't let your past be the end of your happiness in the future. Life brings with it immense joys and immense pleasures, but we must understand that these are all a part of living. It is impossible to go through life without having people disappoint you, but we can't group everyone into the same category of "disappointers". Just because someone hasn't been there for us in the past, doesn't mean that others won't be there for us. Take Tyler and his father, for example. Tyler's father, an overworked businessman, didn't seem to realize when his children needed him, whether they needed him to show up for an art exhibition or to simply listen. If Tyler would have harbored all of the emotions he had towards his father and let them spill out into his relationship with Ally, their love would have withered away quickly. Overall, if you're someone struggling with a troubled past, let love in, because doing so will help you in more ways than imagined.

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-12-01T02:09:00.002-05:00

Do the characters in Remember Me "live in the moments"?

Remember Me is Favorite Film

2010-11-28T22:35:00.003-05:00

Viewers have voted Remember Me to be their favorite Robert Pattinson film in the People's Choice Weekly Movie Poll (we 11-24).

The results of the poll was:
Remember Me 36%
Eclipse 33%
Twilight 23%
New Moon 5%

Excellent!!!

Remember Me's Tag Line - "Live in the Moments"

2010-11-25T05:00:00.000-05:00

As a Thanksgiving treat, Jessegirl has written a lovely article that examines Remember Me's tag line and title in terms of Remember Me's past, present and future.

~by jessegirl November 25, 2010

So many audience members, commenting on their experience of Remember Me, express their take on its tag line, “live in the moments”. Invariably they see it as a message about life, even a lesson, which the film has brought home to them. Some take it to heart and vow to change their behaviour. In essence, people interpret it as a call to appreciate and be thankful for what they have now. This has something is common with the message of the North American Thanksgiving holiday.

Will Fetters’ simple words—which did not make it into the film—are, I think, most indicative of the tag line’s meaning. From the original script:

"You can’t know
So don’t take it for granted
But don’t take it too seriously
Don’t postpone what you want
Don’t leave anything misunderstood
Make sure the people you care about know
Make sure they know how you really feel
Because just like that
It could end."

Tag Lines:
Let’s backtrack a bit.

Tag lines are created for marketing purposes and act like catchy sub-titles which give people a little bit more information about the film, especially its tone. So we have: “It’s a job. It isn’t personal...well, maybe a little”, which lets everyone know that The Bounty Hunter isn’t a serious drama but is a romantic comedy.

This device will help pull in the right audience. Some titles, like She’s Out of My League, need little explanation, but tag lines like: “How can a 10 go for a 5?” are one-line promises that you will have a good laugh when you see the movie. One of Hurt Locker’s tag lines implies gritty nobility: “You don’t have to be a hero to do this job. But it helps.”

And Alice in Wonderland goes for the biggest demographic in its unabashed “Fantastic fun for the whole family”. Most of Dear John’s many tag lines emphasized gushy romance, for example: “Love brought them together. Will fate tear them apart?” This reads like something off the back cover of a Harlequin romance.

Generally speaking, I don’t think this marketing tool is meant to deliver a life lesson or philosophical message. Although Precious indicated hard-core realism capped by a general conclusion about life, spelling it out for you: “Life is hard. Life is short. Life is painful. Life is....Precious.”

I have never, as I recall, taken tag lines to heart or pondered them in any way. They’re just the slogans or jingles for movies, nothing more. “Live in the Moments” is no exception and never struck me as being very meaningful. At first it even sounded trite to me. The film itself is profound in its exquisite execution of a poignant story. Once seen, the film begs a wise tag line, something which will stick with you. For me the title, ‘Remember Me’, doesn’t need anything else.

Live in the Moments:
Bear with me as I analyze this phrase a bit. It can be taken many ways.
Jimmy Fallon, in his interview with Pattinson, determined, off the cuff, the tag line meant: “Do what you want, ‘cause you never know what’s going to happen.” He was kidding. This reminds me of the old song, “Let’s live for today”, which has a reckless connotation and seems hedonistic, an endless party, you know, sex-drugs-rock-‘n-roll. Enjoy but don’t take responsibility.

Or does it mean carpe diem, because if you don’t seize the day it will be lost? That you will have wasted it? Some of those commenting use words like:
Live –intensely, every moment of your life;
Live –in the best possible way;
Live –in the present (not in the past);
Live –life to the fullest;
Live –a good life, with good intentions;
Live –every day as if it were your last;

The thing is, what is the best, the fullest, a good life, to one person is different for another. The terrorists attacking that day no doubt thought they were living that day as if it were their last, living it to the fullest. Believe me, they seized that day!

The tag line, by itself, has nothing to anchor it and clarify it. Living in the moments means nothing separated from Will’s words about expressing love to those you care about because “just like that, it could end”. “I love you,” Tyler and Ally said to each other that last morning. That was what was important. That was part of what Will meant. It’s not living for today because you don’t know what tomorrow brings. It’s telling and showing the people you care about love, because anything could happen tomorrow, anything could take them away, or you, like Tyler was taken away. Just like that.

“Live in the moments”, without the rest of the sentiment, can be interpreted too many ways and is not good enough to carry the burden of insistence. (While I am pondering all this, am I ‘living in the moment’?)

Past, Present, Future:
It’s ironic that the title and the tag line contradict each other. If you are remembering, you are living in the past, not ‘in the moments’, not in the present. Everything about memorializing, never forgetting, is bringing the past into the present, keeping the past—in this case, Tyler’s life and 9/11—present, always. And ‘always’ means the future.

And when people ‘get on with their lives’, it means they work towards a future, like Aiden, buckling down to his studies because his friend’s death sobered him up pretty quickly. So Aiden’s partying mode, his ‘live for today’ way of being, was discarded for a more serious attitude. I don’t think Aiden and Tyler left things unsaid between them. I think they knew they loved each other.

One of the most significant things we do is ponder the past and learn from it. And we are always in the past when we are grieve, re-living the moments we had that person with us, or those moments we screwed up—all the Hawkins except Caroline do this—or moments we had no power over—like Ally in the subway, or Neil, absent at a crucial time. Grieving takes us to the dark night of the soul, to confront monsters more powerful than those in any fantasy world.

Grieving is not just a snap-shot parade of remember-me-moments which we want to relive—like Charles—or a journal in which we talk to the lost love because we miss him so much—like Tyler; it is guilt that we didn’t get it right, that we were somehow responsible. And guilt keeps us stuck in the past. Guilt is a very necessary thing, in the right circumstances; it would, for example, have served the hijackers well. Instead, they deluded themselves into thinking they were martyrs while they were slaughtering innocents. I bring this up to remind us that guilt has its purpose but, like any necessary thing, it can be misplaced.

Why should Tyler feel guilty about Michael? And why should he think Michael is guilty? Why should Neil feel guilty, for not being there, in the subway, that night? Diane and Charles, like any parents who lose a child, whether that child is a baby or a young adult, whether through accident, illness, murder, feel guilty because it is their job to protect. A dead child means you’ve failed. And some of the guilt could be well placed. Perhaps—we don’t know the details---Charles was so overbearing that he killed Michael’s hope for his future. (I’ll get back to hope and the future later.)

Living in the Past:
If anything obliterates the present, it is grief. A veil or film lies between the mourner and the world. He experiences things through filmy glasses; he knows the day is clear but an invisible veil hampers him from seeing it that way. It is removed from him, just out of reach, not quite there.

In many ways, Tyler’s preoccupation illustrates this [I covered this fully in Tyler in Remember Me - The Human Face of Tragedy and Tyler's Journal ] When Tyler keeps scribbling in his journal, he is in that other world. Should he be more present, more ‘in the moment’? Should he be fully present to what is in front of him? Well, apart from the fact that he can’t be, I don’t think he should be either, not at all. Tyler’s ruminations about his brother and about life are crucial to his healing and to the way he will be able to live his life in the future.

And should Charles refrain from living in the frozen past of his family’s life as it loops on his screensaver? It might not be the best way to keep his family close, but at least it includes them all, and he can imagine Michael there, imagine life before he and Diane parted ways.

But Charles is treasuring a past when the family was intact, instead of making sure his loved ones know every day that he loves them. The wall he has built around himself to shield him from his own guilt and loss has to come down so that he can turn to his loved ones instead of turning them away.

Charles needs a wake-up call, and Tyler desperately tries to give him one. One of the saddest things in the story is that Charles was just beginning to waken out of his guilt-induced stupor when Tyler died. Charles is the character who most needs to ‘live in the moments’, to cease taking for granted what he has. The irony may be that by living in the past, seeing Michael’s face every day at his desk, he is giving thanks for what he had but ignoring the beautiful children he has left.

Weighted down with real or misplaced guilt, the characters are stuck in the past and grappling with their internal demons. What will get them out of it? Well, in this way the film was perfect. Tyler’s voice-over, simple, short yet eloquently saying it all: “and I forgive you”. This is the biggie. This is the hardest thing, yet it is the only thing which will get all of them out of the past. Tyler has forgiven his father, and Michael. It is unstated, but Tyler has also forgiven himself, -for not being what he couldn’t be for Michael, for being what he shouldn’t have been to Ally, and just for surviving. That’s why Tyler is so serene at the end.

Coulter, Fetters and Pattinson thought it was just acceptance, but it went deeper.
We all saw that calm and serene softening look on Tyler’s face; he was untroubled, facing the day. It is ironic, but at the end Tyler was living fully in the moment. He was healing. Relationships wouldn’t be miraculously smooth sailing, but a good start had been made. After forgiveness, we can heal. Until then, not. Until then, ‘live in the moments’ is impossible.

The Future:
I have touched on the past: “Remember Me”.
I have talked about the present: “Live in the Moments”.

And what about the future? Well, it is what can be faced, as Tyler did at the end, only after forgiveness and love has made it possible to heal. The future is Charles and Diane linking arms at the gravesite. It is Aiden becoming studious. It is Charles with his arm on Caroline’s shoulder, then holding her hand in the museum. It is Neil and Ally hugging each other tightly. It is Ally on the subway, holding fast to her memories of her mother and of Tyler, and then letting their spirits go. None of them take each other for granted anymore. But it took the death of their dear Tyler and Janine to do that. It took death. It was a high price.

Remember Me explores the past and bids us never to forget. It reminds us to make the most of every moment, make sure the people in our lives know how we feel about them. And, Remember Me points us in the direction of a hopeful future.

The future is being able to believe that the spirits of Ally’s mother, of Michael, of Janine, of Tyler, can and will both stay with their loved ones, yet also soar away. Stay and soar. Their fingerprints will never fade from our lives. They will touch us and we can hear them, always. The future is hope.

Tyler at that window. Our hearts stop. But. Tyler at that window is hope.
He has to know we can hear him.

Love Letters for Remember Me

2010-11-23T23:17:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to our sister site, Regards sur le film Remember Me - Looking at Remember Me who has posted their 100th post!

The feature of this lovely post is Love Letters for Remember Me. The post is filled with artwork and editorials about the film, submitted by the followers of the blog.

Please take a couple of minutes to check out the beautiful artwork and writing.

Vote for Remember Me

2010-11-19T21:10:00.003-05:00

People's Choice Movie Poll for this week is your pick for your favorite Robert Pattinson movie. Remember Me is one of the choices.

Voting is open until November 24th!

Click here to vote:
People's Choice.com

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-11-17T00:57:00.001-05:00

Charles tells Tyler he doesn't know what love is. Why does he do this to Tyler? Is he right? Does Charles himself know what love is?

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-11-09T06:32:00.001-05:00

What's your impression of how men and women react to it? How differently and how much the same?

The Legacy of Remember Me – Part Two

2010-11-06T17:08:00.023-04:00

We are very excited to have Part 2 of Jessegirl's very insightful and touching article about the Legacy of Remember Me. This piece deals with the legacy that Remember Me leaves inside each of us individually.

-by jessegirl- November 2010

Remember Me delivers its gut-punch and then its flash-forward conclusion but the audience is left to deal with a welter of feelings and a jumble of thoughts. And, in the process of dealing, a number of things often happen. Taken together, these things are clear indicators that this little film will have a lasting impact. As I’ve said, legacy is that which remains. I believe that Remember Me has already found entry into the hearts, minds, souls, and memories of many of its viewers.

It touches us. We love it and it finds a place in the heart.
It provokes thought. We think about it and it finds a place in the mind.
It changes us. We go inside ourselves and it finds a place in the soul.
It stays with us. We remember it so it finds a place in the memory.

However, I must concede that for whatever reason some viewers don’t like it at all. With some, it is just a matter of taste. Fair enough. And some just don’t like sad endings. Okay. Others are offended by the ending. Some, like many critics initially, absolutely do not get it. They do not understand the whole grieving aspect of the film and, if they don’t understand that, they do not understand most of the characters’ actions. Some supporters think these detractors are uncomfortable with grief—accounting for their nervous laughter — or that they are jaded. Perhaps. But some of them are either wilfully obtuse and/or callous. Because it doesn’t take a genius to tap into Remember Me’s core, nor does it take a person who — like Remember Me’s characters — has been affected by grief. It takes an open-minded, sensitive, fairly intelligent person. That’s all. However, when speaking of all art, “the good ones don’t serve it up to you – you have to work for it” [Tedracat. IMDb: RP board “Re: People Who Criticize...”]. I’ve voiced this same sentiment in other articles myself.

So it should be understood that while Remember Me’s “fingerprints don’t fade from the lives it touches”, it is obvious that it won’t touch people who lack sensitivity and open-mindedness. I invite those of you who have read both these articles to voice your opinion on what Remember Me’s legacy will be.

A Place in the Heart
The emotions are fully recruited when viewing this movie. However, apart from the shocking engagement of the opening subway scene, which puts them on high alert, the emotions come slowly, innocently, quietly, like that first scene which introduced viewers to Tyler. After the sweets shop scene though, we know the ride is no longer smooth. From there we become acquainted with all the characters’ feelings — e.g. Caroline’s hurt that her father doesn’t love her—and things become complicated pretty quickly.

Our feelings are brought into play subtly, via the actors’ natural performances. Viewers begin feeling with and FOR the characters, not just the protagonist, but also all those in Tyler’s world. This becomes emotionally taxing but I don’t think most viewers are aware of how draining it is until the end. It builds gradually, a myriad of feelings popping up, approaching and receding, colliding. It is all pretty manageable until the climax, and then all hell breaks loose.

When Tyler stands by that window, the flood begins. Nothing can be contained anymore. It is so stunning that some people stay, riveted, momentarily unable to move, to function, to breathe. And many, many people cry. From comments on various sites, blogs, message boards, this phenomenon is very common among men as well as women, teenage boys, middle-aged men. I have dealt with the powerful emotional experience which characterizes the immediate impact and which has a strong cathartic component. [Tragic in Remember Me]

So, boom, huge heart-rending sorrow.

Somehow, it is like the deepest part of you awakens, and all the pain which comes from loving has to be let out. The deepest part of you awakens. It’s like that. It’s a physical feeling. Your chest tightens. You cannot breathe. Tears start pouring down your cheeks. You close your eyes, your lashes wet. You squeeze your eyes shut but your chin trembles anyway. You bite your lips to keep the keening animal sound from escaping. You can barely contain this pain of loving and losing him. So you don’t. You let the pain out. The best and deepest part of you is awake. And so Remember Me has your heart in a vise grip.

Many people have expressed this awakening in different ways, every one of them trying to find the right words, as I have just now tried. Today, this comment was made on a fansite:

-“When I saw it in the theatres I felt like I had been kicked repeatedly in the chest, along with the symphony of sadness and angst and emotions I don’t even have names for because I had never felt them before....feeling lasted for hours...one of the most profound emotional and mental experiences I have ever had...” [Jill. ThinkingofRob. Oct. 27]. The deepest part of you awakens.

But not all the feelings are dissipated with a good cry. Some are residual because catharsis is not instant; it takes its time to work through you. It opens personal wounds and if you have enormous ones you have a bigger job coming to terms with it. Hence the overwhelming need to share stories of personal losses in the safe venue of an anonymous comment on a website, and to read experiences of others and know that you are not alone. There are so many of these stories and they make for illuminating reading, but one will suffice to highlight the depth, the intensity of emotion RM has the power to evoke. One viewer reports:

-“I saw a grown man (around 55 years old) standing outside the theatre with tears streaming down his face...[he said] ‘Tyler was my son that day. Tyler was my son that day.’...[She and her friends and this stranger sat in a café, shared silence] Tears all dried up, we began to share stories and the weight had lifted.” [alliecullen. Robsessed. RM spoiler post March 16]

How often does this emotionally-laden scenario occur after a movie screening? The tears, the support and discussion with strangers? In this particular way, Remember Me’s reception has been highly unusual. It’s astounding really. When reading this anecdote, I could hear the man’s anguished cry:
“Tyler was my son that day.” The deepest part of you awakens.

A Place in the Mind
That story illustrates how the intense emotion pushes forward a drive to understand what just happened because, despite the bittersweet requiem, the viewer is still in shock. When the numbness wears off people need to talk about it. They have a need to talk to others, to discuss, blog, comment, phone, tweet, email, use any method at their disposal.

Because Remember Me is such a multi-dimensional, layered film, because it leaves some things vague or not spelled out directly, it is a rich source for discussions on motivations of the characters, on back story, on what might happen next. It’s amazing what has been done already on this blog in the discussion comments and on forums and on some of the articles created from the controversy, and on Pattinson fan sites which put out ‘spoiler posts’ at that time.

Some of the discussions centered on the ending because controversy always generates discussion and even now debate and dissension continue. When Bryan Reesman submitted his article to Moviefone, he reported: “A topical Moviefone story can often pull in one or two dozen comments. Some have topped 100. This one reached 300 within 12 hours of being posted. At one point last night, I was literally receiving 78,000 views, easily making it the post of the night and landing it a top spot on AOL’s main page.” The Brevet and Bartyzel articles also, as I’ve stated before, attracted lots of substantive comments.

Right from the get-go this film has produced a lot of discussion and it hasn’t stopped. More than seven months after its release people are still commenting. At IMDb there are ‘newbies’ who have just watched the DVD and either comment on old threads or start new ones [e.g. ‘Oscar?’; ‘Extremely Underrated Film’; ‘The Critics were wrong about Remember Me’; ‘Some love for Remember Me’; and so on.] All kinds of people who gave it a pass before, now effuse about the film.

So an aspect of the film’s legacy is happening right now. I’m still writing. You’re still reading. Original viewers and new ones are still commenting. New discussion posts continue to appear. [“Remember Me script vs film’s ending” on ThinkingofRob, Oct. 27]

I can’t hope to cover the variety of discussion about this film. But it is intergenerational, with older people teaching younger ones about 9/11, with people expressing the view that Remember Me should be used as a teaching tool, be taught in high schools and universities, with students already writing essays about it, and with others sharing their stories of grief, loss, and problems.

It is also global, with people from other countries coming to understand the attack from a human perspective. This young man from Australia, who has just now discovered the film through the DVD says: “Not many films do this to me, and I am a big movie buff...But it blew me away...[the ending] invested me in these characters and gave me an understanding and emotion for the attacks that occurred...I now have...a connection, an investment in the tragedy...” This new enthusiast goes on and on. “Everyone did a brilliant job and this film is just remarkable, 10/10. Awards I hope because this film is wonderfully crafted...” [MadDogAbbey. IMDb: RM board. “Blew Me Away”. Nov. 4]

If you are one of those who have been profoundly affected by Remember Me, then the need to share is strong. You recommend the film to friends, relatives, co-workers, the clerk in the video store, or any random people if talk vaguely suggests a connection. You have to overcome obstacles of misunderstanding, misconceptions about ‘that vampire guy’, and a host of issues which are clamped around this film like a shell around the pearl. If you encounter dismissal and still continue, your efforts border on evangelism or ‘pimping’—as one supporter called it. Uh-oh. This is how normal word-of-mouth has become complicated for this film. When you realize this is becoming counter-productive, you stop. Then, much later, some of those who dismissed you see the DVD in the store, think ‘why not’, buy or rent it. Or they view through Netflix. All of a sudden message boards sport new posts called: ‘I was shocked how well done this was!’ New viewers want to share, all kinds of people who gave it a pass before. After Pattinson won the Teen Choice Award for Best Actor for Remember Me teens and tweens have finally decided to give it a chance, and are blown away, -for their own reasons.

By all definitive measures, Remember Me is not a sleeper hit yet though. Those complicating factors from pre-release to thorny word-of-mouth have plagued it all along, no matter how enthusiastic much of its audience has been. It’s not even on the nomination ballot for the poll-driven People’s Choice Awards, while all kinds of lesser titles clutter the ballot.

But the search for common bond by talking with others about Remember Me is a much greater legacy than any of the awards. People come at it from different experiences , some of loss and pain, the broken brave place, but all of them come from that same deep place in the heart. They reach out to talk to others. They can’t stop thinking about it and reach for meaning. Remember Me lets them know on this profound level that it is all right, that it is the reason we are all here. And that in the end, no matter how many words we use to find the meaning, it is the sharing that matters, not the words.

A Place in the Soul
We are more than physical, thinking, feeling beings. We are more than the sum of all these. Tyler leaves, others leave, but something of them is left behind because they were also something more. It’s weird but Pattinson’s statement about the film [to Talking Pictures TV] seems somehow appropriate here. “When you see clips they don’t make any sense outside the movie. It is such a kind of whole....” Remember Me is definitely more than the sum of its parts too.

Something else is at work here, an undefined force which binds with gossamer threads, which enters our souls. It gets past all our defences. And once it is there it never leaves. -“It’s a rare piece, in that it touches the soul of the audience like a good movie should.” [Milouette. IMDb. Re: The critics were wrong about Remember Me. Oct. 10]

Generally, people do not speak of films this way but if this were the essential criterion we used to judge a film’s worth, there would be a huge shake-up in film evaluation. This aspect is rare and most films, no matter how cleverly crafted and artistically or technically rendered, no matter how skilfully acted, do not have it. We can appreciate their excellence but they do not touch us deeply. They win awards, are on ‘best’ lists, but they lack this rare quality which is present in spades in Remember Me. Because compassion is ever present in the tone of Remember Me, it does have it.

It
Part of It is the ability to change lives, to aid in transformation. It is the ability to connect with the deepest part of ourselves, the part that will itself be left behind, that will be our own legacy.

I have reported on the ‘haunting’ quality of Remember Me before but must come back to it here because people are continuing to use this word repeatedly. There are posts named “Haunting” where newbies who have been introduced to the film by DVD, need to unload, to let others know, to gain assurance that they are not unusual. For example, “I saw it last week too and it’s still haunting me and I’m glad I’m not the only one!” [Bsloths. IMDb. RM post. Sept. 17] They do this partly, I think, because of the intensity of their reaction, and partly because it rarely happens when they watch movies. So they don’t know how to handle it. Then someone who saw the film months before informs them that they are far from alone, that many people feel this way. Sort of a “welcome to the club”.

When people talk about Remember Me haunting them or that it “had an amazing impact on my psyche” [ForRentWithMark. IMDb. Oct. 6] we all know it has gotten into the soul. That type of effect is hard to get rid of. It stays.

A Place in the Memory
When viewer say Remember Me stays with them, then it has taken up residence in their memories. I’ve shared comments like those below before; just realize there are many, many similar statements.

-“It stays with everybody who sees it. That is the mark of an exceptional film.” [Laurie. Robsessed ]

- “It’s rare for a movie to stay with me as long as RM has...its haunting me now (in a good way).” [Verlinda. Brevet]

- “I was profoundly moved by Remember Me – I can’t get it out of my head.” [Paula. Brevet]

-“If I’m still thinking about a movie the next day I consider it usually to be a good movie. I have been thinking about this one for the entire week.” [Cindy. Brevet]

And one image that sticks in everyone’s mind more than any other is Tyler standing at that window, just before the screen goes blank. It has become an iconic moment in the film; this article is not long enough to quote everyone who has mentioned it as something they cannot forget. The image is memorable because it is the moment when all realizations coalesce.

I like what this viewer said about that moment:
“Have you ever been in the vortex of a storm? Where it is so quiet and calm and perfectly still? That’s how I feel when Tyler was standing by the window. So eerie and nerve-wracking.” [shufflebin. Robsessed- Bartyzel post]

Tyler was ‘quiet and calm and perfectly still’. He was at the still point, the centre, and at that moment it was made clear to all that that centre would be forcibly removed. That in itself would be enough to make it stay with viewers. But of course it was so much more than the protagonist’s life. It was September 11th, and all that that implies. So 9/11 was part of the realization that something evil would fly in to take away Tyler and so many others. All of this was fused together, inseparable.

This one unforgettable, emblematic moment and the silence which follows is flanked by Zarvos’ score, the montage of Tyler’s last morning before and the montage of his loved ones after. And the music adheres in its own way to the silences. The music ties everything to the memory. And, likes all good music, when we hear it again, it harkens back to its source, to the film. Music is perhaps second only to scent in its ability to evoke memories.

One of Remember Me’s legacies is as a touchstone to remember 9/11, but with a perspective that has humanized the tragedy. That is the key difference between it and any other 9/11 films. Seen through the lens of this fictional character’s life, the terrible significance of the event is brought home, making it both more real and more personal. By doing that, Remember Me has become an effective way to keep 9/11 in the memory of contemporaries, to ensure that those too young to remember will know, and to bring it into the future. Lest we forget.

To explain Remember Me’s reception, some have called it a movie before its time. However, its universality as a human tragedy and its bond to a national tragedy makes its relevance both timely and timeless.

Remember Me’s true legacy goes beyond the tangible measurements I talked about in part one of this piece. Nice as the other forms of recognition are, I hope those who made this film realize that they have accomplished what really matters. Remember Me touches us. It provokes thought. It changes us. And it stays with us. Heart, mind, soul, memory. How many other films have done that, -can do that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sources for comments and quotes:

Ropes of Silicon.com
“Reacting to Remember Me: an Interview with Screenwriter Will Fetters”, by Brad Brevet. March 16, 2010.

Comments from the site: RobsessedPattinson.com
about the Bartyzel post.[“Post-Movie Coffee: Remember Me”, by Monika Bartyzel. March19, 2010. “Post-Movie Coffee: Remember Me”, by Monika Bartyzel]
and various ‘Spoiler Posts’ about Remember Me, dated March 12, 13, 14, 16, and April 2, 5th. (The comments for this film in these posts on this huge and popular fansite were notable for their intelligence, insight, perception, thoughtfulness, as well as their passion. These particular posts should not be dismissed.)

Attention Deficit Delirium.com“Remember Me: Stirring up Controversy and Emotions”. March 16, 2010. In the quote he is referring to his article: by Bryan Reesman. March 15, 2010.

“Remember Me script vs Film’s Ending” Oct. 27, 2010. Thinking of Rob.com

Comments on:
Remember Me at IMDb.com
Robert Pattinson at IMDb.com

The Legacy of Remember Me: Part One

2010-10-31T13:50:00.005-04:00

In Jessegirl's latest wonderful article takes a very interesting and thoughtful look at what the Remember Me Legacy might be in the future.

-by jessegirl- October 24, 2010

Gazing into a crystal ball, what will Remember Me’s legacy be?
Will the Oscars, Baftas, SAGs, Golden Globes look favourably in its direction?
Will it be included in future “Best Film” lists?
Will it become a classic? Or perhaps a cult classic? A sleeper?
Could it become a best-loved film?
Could it appear on film courses in universities, or even find a niche in high school history classes? What criteria do we use to measure legacy?

Hmm. I’m sure some people reading this will think these are ridiculous questions. Given the way the industry and media operate perhaps many think specifically my second query deserves only a raised eyebrow and a dismissive snort. Knowing the film as I do, I would never have predicted either poor critical reception or fair to middling box office, certainly not both together. But that combination was part of what propelled me into defending the film. What does that say about the accuracy of my crystal ball?

It is early days to speak of legacy, I know. It’s been only about 6 months since Remember Me’s U.S. theatrical premiere. However, with films, predictions are rampant. People have no compunction to say “generating Oscar buzz” about other films, either before general release (Oprah, about Precious at TIFF), or after a lucrative premiere (The Social Network).

Oscars and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
This type of Oscar buzz is laden with self-fulfilling prophecy. It manipulates the public into considering certain films Oscar contenders just as they’re leaving the gate, only because the media has presented them this way. (I’m not judging the worth of the films I mention, but am observing a pattern.) The public gets used to hearing a particular film’s title together with the word Oscar and this word association sticks in their minds. People are primed to buy into this idea; the buzz builds because from the first time people hear of the film it has been given this classy cachet, whether deserved or not. Once it takes hold, this initial hype feeds on itself. People think there must be something of value in the film. If the film really isn’t that great, it becomes a situation of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Only independent and rebellious viewers won’t be swept up in this almost mindless concurrence.

But a self-fulfilling prophecy is a machine in motion, and inertia carries it forward, not insight, excellence or perspective. And this machine can effectively go in the other direction and shut down a film’s future too. The words which early “critical” reviews associated with Remember Me were designed to cut it off at the knees (i.e. shameful, exploitative, manipulative, tacked-on ending, maudlin and so on).

And, in my opinion, the only reason Remember Me has not had Oscar buzz surrounding it is because of the biased, unprofessional behaviour of critics. Their rash, opinionated yet obtuse attitudes created an avalanche of misconception. And their negative words adhered to the film, tainting it. Let’s face it, Remember Me’s true audiences would be drawn from outside the Twilight universe, a broad demographic that would have to be won over another way. In any case, believing makes it so. If you hear these derogatory words often enough, you would be likely to give the film a pass rather than a chance. It all comes down to belief, to faith in the arbiters of opinions.

Critical Acclaim
Now some staunch supporters of Remember Me have made predictions that in future, when Remember Me’s excellence is finally recognized, in some gloriously imagined future, the critics will eat their words. Others think this is a pointless fantasy. I know that if this back-pedalling ever comes from the critics, it will not be in time to make a difference to the up-coming awards season. Critics are not known for eating humble pie; after all, what faith would people have in a critic who makes a marked about-face?

Other supporters think the die is cast, critical reception being—er—critical to award nominations. So when I speak of Remember Me’s legacy, I go far beyond the awards. I have, of course, advocated persistently on behalf of Remember Me — to the annoyance of some — have attempted to counter the juggernaut of negativity and to generate Oscar buzz myself at the grass-roots level [See my article Oscars and Remember Me.]

But that’s a rusty engine to start if it’s been sabotaged from the beginning
and my puny efforts cannot take the sugar out of the tank, so to speak. Who the heck am I? To use another metaphor, battling this many-headed Hydra of established critical influences takes a superhero and I’m not that. I would leave behind all talk of awards except that other viewers who loved this film are vocally enthusiastic about its award-worthy nature. I may be a passionate advocate but I am not the only voice, far from it, I’m only one of so many viewers. The following are the tip of the iceberg:

-‘It has to win some kind of award.’ [Nancy]
-‘ITA...this movie needs to win awards! The quality of this movie is just fantastic!...And the entire cast deserves serious accolades...It is definitely award-worthy!’ [GwenCooper426]
-‘this is Oscar worthy...’ [Bonemama]
-‘the movie is a masterpiece...’ [alliecullen]

Best Film Lists
Everyone knows that not all Academy Award winners withstand the test of time, whereas some films/directors/actors which have never won awards are now on either best-loved or best film lists. The awards have glaring omissions (Hitchcock stands out). Films not nominated for a single Oscar which are now considered classics are Bringing Up Baby (1939), Fail Safe (1964), His Girl Friday (1940), and The Searchers (1956). Films not nominated for Best Picture include: Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Some Like it Hot. Actors never nominated include: Marilyn Monroe, Maureen O’Hara, Dirk Bogarde, Martin Sheen and Donald Sutherland (whose snub for Ordinary People was stunning).
One could go on in this vein and Filmsite.org has.

“Best” lists vary and are themselves subjective and skewed by the attitudes of the year in which they are made, as well as the gender of their creators. These days cynicism wins over compassion, clever crafting wins over reverence, for example. ‘Gritty’ and ‘slick’ tenor win over emotion, and the degrogatory ‘maudlin’ is attached to anything attempting to deliver tender feeling. These are general 2010 biases.

Classics
But what the lists give us is some perspective and what critics pan now might be considered a classic in time. Remember Me’s audiences have voiced this also, repeatedly.

-‘It will still be relevant in a year, 5 years, and in 10 years.’ [GwenCooper426]
-‘I’m sure in some years from now it will be one of those movies that when you say you haven’t seen it people look at you in wonder/surprise and tell you “you can’t be serious, you HAVE to see this movie!”’ [Vafla89]
-‘If ever there was a film that requires perspective, it’s RM...Some things require a second viewing before you ‘get it’...I have a feeling this film is going to be talked about a LOT over the years...Right now we’re dealing with a ‘knee jerk’ reaction.’ [Nikola6]
-‘This is in a class on its own, a class beyond excellence, and certainly beyond what the usual movie fare is.” [Solas]
-‘This film will be a classic!...They don’t make them like this anymore.’ [Valerie]
-‘This movie is a classic. People just don’t realize it yet.’ [Jennifer L]
-‘This is going to be one of those films that in 10 years will be looked back upon by critics as one of the best ‘unusual’ films of the decade –it will make many lists of outstanding films that were underappreciated in their time but gained respect and stature as the years go on and more and more viewers discover it.’ [Rubydynasty]

I agree with this. Remember Me will, at some point, not only be vindicated, but will be considered a genuine Classic, -capital ‘C’.

Money
The Box Office for Remember Me is actually quite respectable, considering its genre. It made approxomintley $58M worldwide (its foreign BO was great). This more than delivered profit, as its budget was a mere $16M. Some big budget films competing with it, like Green Zone haven’t made back their budgets. I won’t make comparisons with other films here as it is complicated to find apples-to-apples candidates.

DVD domestic sales are currently $10.3M at least (not included are Walmart figures which are not released, and international sales). Rental figures are strong as well.

Audience polls
Box Office Mojo’s readers’ poll gave Remember Me 81% [67.6% (A) & 12.9% (B)].
Compare with: Green Zone 60.5%; Dear John at 51.1%; Alice in Wonderland 69.8%). Only Oscar contenders/winners fared as good as or better than Remember Me: Blind Side 87.6%; Hurt Locker 81.7%; Precious 82%; Avatar 88.1%).
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Poll: Remember Me = 71% liked it.
IMDb : a respectable 7 out of 10 ranking for Remember Me.
Amazon (US and UK) audience DVD reviews: average 4.5 out of 5 stars.

There’s more and one could go into more detail comparing various films on these scales but in general Remember Me has found great audience approval. These measurements have their own biases and problems but they are used for all films.

Real Legacy
All of the factors I’ve mentioned tell only part of the story. Legacy is more. Legacy is “that which remains”. When the dust settles, what will be the core, the kernel, the essence of Remember Me’s legacy? Remember Me is a film about legacy: Ally’s Mom’s legacy; Michael’s legacy; Tyler’s legacy; and that of 9/11. Thematically, it is suffused with legacy.

Immediate Impact
The ‘prologue’ grabs you right from the beginning.
The first scene—Tyler’s apartment—eases you into the narrative skilfully.
The climax tears you forcefully away.
The epilogue—the requiem montage—begins the next journey.
So, from beginning to end you are engaged.

The prologue scene, the murder of Ally’s mother, grabs you immediately. Yes, it’s the unexpected violence, but it has been presented skilfully. We see the relationship between mother and daughter right away and then know the husband’s pain as the scene closes. A combination of fine acting, cinematography, music, and craftsmanship has done its work. We’re there.

This is followed by the first scene, the introduction to Tyler’s life, ’10 years later’. After the violence and sadness of the prologue has caught our attention, this scene subtly eases us into the main story. The phone is ringing quietly and the music is gentle as we travel through the apartment to observe Tyler’s form partially visible on the fire escape.

The cinematography here is masterful, both in concept and execution. We inhabit Tyler’s domicile right away, move through it to meet him as he enters from the other side. This scene is genius.

Tyler adjusts his ears to verify the sound of the phone, his face and form evident to us in increments. Then he gingerly repositions cigarette and beer bottle.

All this care has aroused our curiosity even before he stumbles, then slowly, carefully, leans across the bed to reach for the phone yet leave the girl in the bed undisturbed.

He answers with a soft voice and before we know it we see him walking up the hill to meet his family at the grave site. By the time family dynamics are played out in the sweets shop we are trapped in the Hawkins’ gossamer net, drawn irrevocably into Tyler’s life.

The journey from there to his death keeps our emotions so engaged that we soon feel related to these characters. Then the tether snaps, breaking the connection; it is taken away. After allowing us in, it destroys. And so we come to the epilogue, the end. We do not want to let go but we have no choice since we have been torn away. It is shocking.

After that we have to deal with being torn away. And so, in the process of ‘dealing’, a number of things happen—some all at once and some linger to be dealt with later—things which, taken together, are rare when responding to a film.

In Part Two, I will show how we deal, and in the process, try to articulate what I feel to be Remember Me’s legacy.
I will talk about how significant legacies find:
A Place in the Mind.
A Place in the Heart.
A Place in the Memory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sources for comments:
robsessedpattinson.com Various RM spoiler posts (March and April).
IMDb Robert Pattinson message board: Some Love for Remember Me(Oct. 15).

“Reacting to Remember Me: an Interview with Screenwriter Will Fetters”, by Brad Brevet. March 16, 2010. Ropes of Silicon.com
Sources for figures:

IMDb.com
Rotten Tomoatoes.com
Amazon.com
Box Office Mojo.com

Filmsite.org

Nominate Remember Me for the People's Choice Award

2010-10-26T20:14:00.006-04:00

We all have said that Remember Me deserves recognition as the special, wonderful film that it is. Now there is something we can do about it!

Let's write in Remember Me for a People's Choice Award!

Nominate Remember Me for Peoples Choice Awards by clicking on the links listed below, then type in Remember Me in the other box:

Favorite Movie
Favorite Drama Movie

Thanks AZ!

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-10-24T04:11:00.000-04:00

We have commented before about the similarities between Ally's father and Tyler. Do you think that there are similarities between Ally and Tyler's mother?

How Remember Me Compares Internationally

2010-10-24T01:27:00.004-04:00

by Sammie1863

All of the talk in the other thread about Remember Me motiviated me to take a look at some of the totals, especially those outside the US. Remember Me seems to be done in theatres now unless it opens in additional international locales. It's performance, especially internationally, is pretty impressive. BO earnings for Remember Me through October 3 is $36,785,867. The overall total for Remember Me on Box Office Mojo as shown is just for those countries listed on its site (this seems to vary between films). The totals for India and Switzerland and perhaps other locations are not included. The last total for Switzerland was $1.1M. I would hazard to guess that India is probably similar, so I believe the International BO was probably closer to $39M.

Whatever Summit's ultimate profits were, I think that those who are watching have noted that this is an impressive performance due in great part to Rob's participation. Just to give an idea of how well the film did, I have compiled some film's international totals for comparison. These may or may not be similar films, but, they are familiar films which should help in gauging how well Remember Me did. The "star power" in some of the films listed and the performance of Remember Me in comparison, is also, IMO, an indication of Rob's potential draw. For a relatively small film usually showing in fewer cinemas than the bigger films (sometimes as much as 50% less), Remember Me finished in the top 25 OVERALL (weekend totals for all countries) for six weeks maintaining a top ten finish for 3 weeks. It rarely opened out of the top ten in any country and was more often in the top 5.

Most of the films listed are finished or appear to be near the end of their run. Production budgets are in parentheses.

1. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang: $63.3M ($35M)
2. The Book of Eli: $62.2M ($80M)
3. The Green Zone: $59.8M ($100M)
4. Law Abiding Citizen: $52.9M ($50M)
5. Kick Ass: $48.1M ($30M)
6. Killers: $45.1M ($75M)
7. Ghost Writer: $43.7M ($45M)
8. The Back Up Plan: $39.9M ($35M)
9. Edge of Darkness: $37.6M ($80M)
10. Remember Me: $36.8M ($16M)
11. Dear John: $34.9M ($25M)
12. Nine: $34.2M ($80M)
13. From Paris With Love: $28.5M ($52M)
14. The Last Song: $26.1M ($20M) *Still Playing/Will increase, but, IMO will not surpass RM
15. Letters To Juliet: $20.4M ($30M)
16. Daybreakers: $20M ($20M)
17. The Road: $18.8M ($25M)
18. She's Out of My League: $16.8M ($20M)
19. A Single Man: $15.7M ($7M)
20. The Crazies: $15.3M ($20M)
21. Brothers: $14.5M ($26M)
22. Hot Tub Time Machine: $13.8M ($36M)
23. Cop Out: $10.5M ($30M)
24. Brooklyn's Finest ($9.1M ($17M)
25. Leap Year $6.7M ($19M)

Source:
IMDb

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-10-19T00:15:00.002-04:00

'You're responsible for no one!' Charles yells at Tyler. Is this true?

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-10-14T02:17:00.002-04:00

Care to share? How many times have you watched RM? What keeps bringing you back?

Robert Pattinson Selling Remember Me: The Press Junket

2010-10-12T01:05:00.002-04:00

Jessegirl is back with her 12th amazing article! This one deals with some of the issues surrounding Rob and the marketing of Remember Me, in particular the time of the press junket prior to the release.

-by jessegirl- September 28, 2010

The Product:
Remember Me is not an easy story to sell; it was difficult to get financing for the project and then later it was a hard sell during promotion. Part of the reason is that it cannot be pigeon-holed into the usual genres, and when a close type is identified, it turns out most of the viewing public is not ready to pay to see that type of film.

Allen Coulter, its director, said it could be a ‘romantic drama’, but that it has “so many different layers...even we [the filmmakers] couldn’t describe it...which can be a terrible disadvantage and perhaps this is the kind of movie that wouldn’t get made if someone like Robert Pattinson didn’t want to make it...how do you explain to people...”. [to Edward Douglas at Coming Soon.net]

I ‘m not sure of the exact timeline, but Pattinson definitely read the script and met with Coulter and producer Nick Osborne and signed on to Remember Me long before Twilight came out. At that point none of the men knew that Twilight’s success would catapult Pattinson into the stratosphere of fame, but when it did, he then had the clout to get Summit to back the project. This phenomenal occurrence was a double-edged sword, because, when filming began, Coulter reports that it was “incredibly difficult” to film on the streets of NYC, with disrespectful paps and Pattinson’s eager fans hampering their efforts.

Because Remember Me defied categorization, even the star had problems selling it on the press junket. When speaking with Matt Lauer on the Today Show, the usually articulate Pattinson was a loss for words. He said:
“..it seemed like there was a reason to do it...it seemed like it wasn’t written just to be a film...I don’t know..there was just something special about it and I thought every part of it helped it become what it is..” This was the star’s chance, on national TV, to give people a reason to see the film. Hmm.

I am not faulting Pattinson or Coulter, and, with perspective, I realize it’s not as easy as it seems to give people a hook to hang the film on. For me, knowing a few plot details—like the families of two lovers coping with loss—was intriguing enough. And the way Pattinson and the filmmakers spoke of it, their passion, also drew me in. Obviously I’m not the run-of-the-mill filmgoer.

For the sake of normal filmgoers, how do you sell what you can’t describe in a sentence or two, what defies categories? Lauer was not about to ask him more in-depth questions. ‘But how was it different than a film? What more was the script meant to be? Did it seem too real to be a film, is that what you mean?’ I would have asked questions like that, delved deeper, help him figure it out. That’s the way to make discoveries. The Today Show is not the venue for pursuing any deeper thoughts though.

Remember Me, its raison d’ être if you will, is hard to encapsulate, especially in these frustratingly short press interviews. The funny thing is, its purpose and the total effect of the finished product, is something you just feel, not necessarily with understanding. As Pattinson said: “there was just something special about it” (the script). And all the little bits, the separate scenes, come together to transfer that special something onto the screen. As he went on: “every part of it helped it become what it is.” I think he knew but didn’t understand. He knew with intuitive, instinctive comprehension, and Pattinson trusted it. This man has wisdom and an authentic demeanour which made me trust his judgement.

When it comes right down to it though, how do you sell the dark night of the soul? How do you sell tragedy? People today have an aversion to the depth of a film like this.

The Front Man...and his Baggage:
While Coulter, Osborne, Fetters, and co-stars Brosnan, Cooper and especially DeRavin all took part in promotion, Robert Pattinson was the front man. His star power would highlight this little film in a way which, without him, wouldn’t happen. But Pattinson came with baggage, namely the public’s perceptions of him as the vampire from Twilight, and the critics and TV hosts/interviewers’ preconceptions.

It turned out that his fan base was not homogeneous, not merely hormonal young teen girls. One group of fans initiated Remember Me Saturday, a campaign to get his fans out on opening weekend in a show of support. However, backlash from large numbers of Twilight fans who had not been able to separate Edward from Robert and refused to see him with another love interest boycotted, which counteracted the other campaign. I must admit I had not factored in the scope of this immaturity. Good to know.

Of course Remember Me was never meant to be a teen flick, Coulter and Pattinson were clear on that, and Pattinson was instrumental in getting a trailer changed. (The fact that many thoughtful teens—male and female, internationally—love the film is an interesting aside.)

Pattinson hit not only The Today Show, but The Early Show, The Daily Show, Jimmy Fallon, and The View (with Emily), MTV. Part of the print articles in Vogue and Details magazines dealt with Remember Me. There was the press day, where interviewers were given no more than 5 minutes each with him, the speed-dating format. And the press was out in full force at the premieres.

Again and again the inability to sum up the film in a sentence to entice, or to pigeon-hole it, was evident when he spoke:
-“I really don’t know how to summarize it, it’s quite complicated...it’s a family drama I think...” –“It seemed like it was written for a reason.” –“When you see clips they don’t make any sense outside the movie. It is such a kind of whole..”

On the red carpet at the London premiere, with fans screaming:
RP: “..it doesn’t really press the same buttons as normal films; I hope people don’t go into it thinking ‘I’m going to watch a really happy romantic drama’, ‘cause it’s not really.”
The interviewer: “Well, SELL it!”
RP: “I’m so terrible at selling stuff. It’s really good though.”
Interviewer: “People are watching...We put money into it...”
RP: “It’s really different...It doesn’t really fit into a genre.”

The closest he came to identifying it was when he compared it to films like Ordinary People. “There are no heroes. There are no villains. Everyone in it is a good person. It’s just sort of a good family trying to deal with tough times...It’s hard to categorize.” To which Maggie Rodriguez [The Early Show interview] counters: “How would you categorize it?” In an otherwise good interview, even this gentle woman is like a dog with a bone. It must have frustrated him.

Added to this issue was the importance of keeping the big secret about the ending. All the filmmakers were very careful not to give it away, as was Pattinson. All this care blew away in the wind when Matt Lauer blurted it out on national TV. The only thing he didn’t do was say “9/11”. Oops. Thanks, Matt.

In general all the big shows talk about other things—Twilight, his hair, his private life, the tabloids, anything to make the audience laugh. This is their MO generally, with everyone. It’s light and bright and superficial. I have no problem with that, but the irresponsibility of some of these household names is amazing. Many of the big name hosts have had the gall to have him on their nationally broadcast shows without bothering to do minimal research. They glibly talk about fangs when anyone who knows Meyer’s fantasy world knows her vampires do not have fangs. They are incredulous when Robert says he wanted to be a rapper in his youth [Oprah], yet any cursory biography would have told them that. They interrupt him just as he’s started answering their question [Regis]. This type of insulting dismissal is glaringly evident to anyone who does know. Yet Pattinson handles them with finesse.

I will pursue an interesting aside here, since Pattinson’s baggage and public persona is crucial when he is sent on press junkets.

Although so many who interview him repeat the same tired questions, he attempts to vary his answers for interest. He affords not only the interviewers but the public courtesy and respect for their intelligence. His innate curiosity and genuine willingness to learn and to play along with their silly games is evidence of his good nature [Ellen –woman fondly him blindfolded; Fallon –Robert is Bothered]. The scratch my back variety of publicity. The game.

And yet when he assumes others are as intelligent as he is, his jokes go over their heads or are culturally misunderstood. Media reaction typically feeds the misunderstanding instead of clearing it up, so that ‘vampire boy’ is left swinging in the wind on TV. This type of media manipulation is reprehensible. And yet those who perpetrate it have no qualms. The big names feel entitled to do this.

A case in point: Pattinson had made a humorous comment to Jenny Lumet during a print interview for Details magazine [March 2010]. He had been surrounded by practically nude models for this long photo shoot and said something like, it made him “allergic to vaginas”. I must admit when I read the article this remark puzzled me, until someone, a Brit., told me the joke.

Here it is:
Male Patient: Doctor, what’s wrong with me? I’m allergic to vaginas.”
Doctor: Why do you say that?
Patient: Because every time I see one, I swell up and need to rub.
A bit off-colour, but fine in a print interview in a magazine catering to adults. He had just subtly referenced the joke, assuming it was common knowledge.

So, what happened when he and Emilie De Ravin were guests on The View for the Remember Me junket? There he was, surrounded on stage by four female hosts and his co-star. His whole family was in the audience. An impressionable pre-adolescent female fan was also in the audience. Family and fan had previously been pointed out by the hosts. Nevertheless, Barbara Walters brings it up—what’s this about vaginas?- expecting him to explain. She hasn’t bothered to research? The irresponsibility, the tactlessness, the ignorance, from this veteran ‘journalist’ is mind-boggling. For heaven’s sake, his mother was in the audience! So much for the hope that a couple of interesting questions about Remember Me would be posed.

The two dangers I see for him as a result of this insane amount of fame.
First, how would any of us react to the level and intensity of adulation he deals with? A big ego-booster, right? Cool enough to counteract what amounts to worship? The thing is, down-to-earth and self-deprecating though Pattinson is, this type of attention is enough to warp anyone’s ego. The real danger is if he believes he is as great as the fans think. It’s an abnormal and rare circumstance he finds himself in, and we’ve seen stars subject to far less become insufferable narcissists. They lose their moral compass, their sense of limits and decency wiped out by a wave of entitlement. In my opinion, this is the single most important threat to Pattinson the man.

Second, is the loss of his privacy. This is the price of fame and fortune, which would be a deal breaker for me. After filming Remember Me, when asked how he copes, the sad answer was that he looked down a lot. When asked what he does in his spare time he laughed: “Just basically running down alley ways and hiding in dumpsters.” It makes fun of the situation, yet gives nothing away. He is a master at adroitly deflecting their intrusive personal questions, usually with humour. The man is recognized everywhere, no matter how many beards, glasses, hats he uses, and Twitter makes it next to impossible for him to go anywhere without being besieged. His recent ‘road trip’ is a case in point, although in one bar, it took four whole hours for someone to recognize him.

Loss of privacy and adulation also isolate him. He is now separated from ordinary people and this cuts him off from a grounded existence, from discovering and enjoying normal people, and vice versa. He cannot trust, as previously. Do the famous realize how sad this is? It is another thing which threatens his sense of reality. Some have said that Pattinson’s bonds with his old friends and his family are strong enough to ‘keep him real’. Maybe so, but the tug of fame could change them too and lead their relationship in another direction. There is no easy solution. Roles like Tyler help, IMO.

This digression addresses what must always be remembered when he does anything. Without his fame Remember Me would not have been made. Yet without his baggage, the making and selling of Remember Me would not have been so complicated.

The Market
Say Pattinson, Coulter and Fetters had been able to elucidate Remember Me’s thrust. What is the market for tragedy, for the dark night? Why do people go to the movies these days? After all, at home they have theatre systems with 55” flat screens in HD and surround sound, cushy recliners, privacy, cheap snacks and they don’t have to put up with advertisements blaring at them at the cinema. What can compete with that?

It seems they go for special effects, 3-D, with movies they can take their families or dates to. Blockbusters, action flicks with explosions, rom coms and animated fare with lots of CGI are the order of the day. Or feel good movies like The Blind Side. So many want to escape and judge films with sad endings as bad.

However, for all their 3-D magic, blockbusters are often one-dimensional. They are plain, the ‘depth’ an illusion. They take you on a ride like a high-powered roller coaster and it’s so exhilarating, so exciting! But, after the buzz wears off, it is nothing. It is gone. Poof, -like magic.

Contrast that with films like To Kill a Mockingbird, Ordinary People, Dead Poets Society, Remember Me. These films invite you in. They offer up their stories—which are strong and have substance. They give them to you. Beneath this cordiality is a hardness, because they know you will have to work for the magic. You will have to become a co-creator. You don’t need to put anything on, like 3-D glasses; instead you’ll have to remove your defences.

Now that actually scares some people. They’d rather have blood, gore, violence. They say they just want to be entertained. They want to be put into the action, be thrilled. Film as adrenalin rush. Strapped into their seats and go for a ride. They’re tired after school and work and just want to be taken away.

But with Remember Me there are no special effects. No 3-D. Ironically though, in Remember Me there are more layers and dimensions waiting for us to find them. They don’t engulf us so we lose ourselves; they wait for us to excavate so we can find ourselves. We engage, our imaginations, our hearts and minds, our humanity all attuned to that multi-dimensional world Tyler lives in. 3-D? Pffft! 3-D has nothing on that. There is no razzle-dazzle in Remember Me, just blood, sweat and tears.

When we engage, only then, does the miraculous reveal itself. At some point quiet magic has been worked. Not by the filmmakers alone, but by our responses and participation. Otherwise it won’t happen. With Remember Me, if we allow it, our entire beings respond to the Tragic. And that is the most powerful of all. It is not a ride that leaves you dizzy but a journey you take with the characters. And it stays with you. Over the coming hours, days, weeks...maybe more, you allow it to stay inside, working its little miracle within you. And, here’s the kicker; it changes you. You’re not tired anymore, but energized, emotions in high gear. The action is all inside you, that’s part of Remember Me’s magic.

-“But when you see it, it’s like, have I ever had that kind of transformative experience in a movie before? Rarely...” [VAgirl –IMDb message board]

-“This movie had the power to change the way I feel about things, the way I act towards others...” [shazbott89 –IMDb message board]

What did these viewers have to say about Remember Me and its competition?

-“..I’ll remember the poignancy of Remember Me far more than I’ll remember Alice in Wonderland or even Avatar. What does that say for the big budgets, huh?” [Kerri –Bartyzel ]

-“I saw the film and it stayed with me. Not many films do that anymore. I doubt The Bounty Hunter, which cost $50M—more than 3 times the budget of Remember Me —will be lingering in people’s thoughts afterwards.” [Sling –Bartyzel]

-“People actually cried while watching this movie. People felt all sorts of emotions from this movie. How many movies have you seen throughout your lifetime that affected you this way?...While watching Alice (In Wonderland) I forgot the previous scenes when the next one came up. After...I didn’t remember much about the movie. But for Remember Me, I still remember the movie and my emotions throughout. That’s a powerful movie in my opinion.” [Tawndy –Bartyzel]

Some people can’t tolerate their own, or anyone else’s strong emotions; they want to go to the movies for fun, laughs, fantasy, horror, for the ride. To uncover their strong emotions embarrasses them, angers, annoys. Of course, anger and annoyance are emotions too, as are fear and joy. It is specific emotions these people don’t want to admit. It’s not cool to reveal how compassionate you are. It’s not cool—or manly?—to cry at the movies.

One commenter at IMDb mocked that the message board was “full of emos that would cry at the drop of a hat, no matter how contrived a movie is”. This person is part of the problem. He thinks if he disses those whose finer emotions are engaged by Remember Me, he is above it all.

Are we, as a society, still back in that restrictive place which ties down a man’s sensitive emotions? Then we are talking about pathos, not tragedy, about a culture which refuses to cultivate the ‘higher’ emotions, like compassion, the only emotions which will, by the way, get us all out of the mess of the kind of terrorism perpetrated on September 11th. That’s clear, isn’t it?

Given all of the above, how could Pattinson et al have told us this, how could he have even predicted it? The story was always going for the dark night of the soul and audiences had to be willing to go there. That was the point. But they weren’t supposed to know that. Remember Me is not for the faint of heart. It requires bravery.

How do you categorize the unique?
We can only put Remember Me beside other unique films of depth and emotional power. Films like: To Kill a Mockingbird, Ordinary People, Dead Poets’ Society, Terms of Endearment. You know the ones. That is the class and ‘type’ of movie Remember Me belongs in. These are the meaningful films. They engage your entire being, just as all good art does, and at a deeper level than ordinary movie fare. They are multi-layered and multi-dimensional. They have substance, heart, compassion for the human condition.

And yet they are also very entertaining, unpretentious, and totally accessible. They are the real “must sees”, the “not to be missed” films. They are not flashy yet, in their quiet way, they grab hold of you to work their little miracles, then stick with you. All great stories are hard to pigeon-hole. Will wrote an original story, in an extraordinary context. And, one by one, producers, director, actors and the crew too, became passionately involved.

It’s easy to give a movie like that a chance, if you trust to the tenor of Pattinson’s words about it, and to Coulter’s, Osborne’s, DeRavin’s, Fetter’s. And once you’ve given it a chance, it’s easy to fall in love with it. Who needs categories? They all fall away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

References-
“Post-Movie Coffee: Remember Me”, by Monika Bartyzel. March19, 2010.
Post-Movie Coffee:Remember Me

Various IMDb Remember Me and Robert Pattinson message boards.
Remember Me IMDb page
Robert Pattinson IMDb page

Coming Soon.net

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-10-05T23:24:00.001-04:00

When we first see grown-up Ally and Neil together, in their home, hurrying breakfast before they head out for the day, Ally puts what looks like a prescription medication in her Dad's coffee mug. What kind of condition do you think Neil has? Also, does Ally 'mother' him?

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-10-01T01:49:00.002-04:00

Caroline puts 4 stones on Michael's grave. Does each represent a member of the family? Why isn't there one for /from Les?

Remember Me DVD Tops $10 Million in Sales

2010-09-29T02:26:00.002-04:00

Remember Me DVD has sold 550,599 copies of the DVD for $10,035,122! Congratulations to all involved in Remember Me!

Remember Me Discussion Group

2010-09-28T14:17:00.002-04:00

After the fight in the alley, Tyler and Aiden are in jail. Does it seem like this is the first time?

"Love Letters for Remember Me"

2010-09-26T00:01:00.002-04:00

Our sister site Regards Sur le Film Remember Me - Looking at Remember Me is looking for your imput and creativity. For their 111th post, they are going to be posting a "Love Letters for Remember Me" feature. They are looking for anything that shows and/or references why you love Remember Me. Fan art, a poem, a paragraph of text, a photo or a screencap or maybe a video. Anything that you can think of. There is a lot of love for this film, so let's make our voices heard! I'll let you know here when the feature is up!

Please send your entries to rememberme.france@gmail.com