‘Remember Me” begins with a small act of violence and ends with a large one, making it one of the more curious ideas for a Hollywood romance in a while. The sheer novelty of its doomy scenario might just find it a devoted, tear-stained audience.
The prologue, set in 1991, depicts the random murder of a woman as her daughter helplessly watches.
Ten years later, the daughter, Ally (Emilie de Ravin, from “Lost”), lives in Queens with her tough-cop dad (Chris Cooper). Lately he arrests Tyler Hawkins (Robert Pattinson), a scruffy young rebel, on a minor street-fighting charge.
Tyler, it turns out, comes from a wealthy family; his unloving father (Pierce Brosnan) is a corporate tycoon with a fancy office in downtown Manhattan. Brosnan suppresses his accent and swills his Scotch and lets his inner jerk shine through.
Although he is volatile, Tyler dotes on his younger sister, so we know beneath the angst is a heart of gold. As the little girl, Ruby Jerins (from TV’s “Nurse Jackie”) gets more screen time than Lena Olin, playing her mom.
Robert Pattinson, the breakout star of the “Twilight” pictures, remains in that film’s gloomy vein, so to speak. Here, Mr. Broody-pants plays another weight-of-the-world type, scribbling in his notebook and allegedly reading poetry and quoting Gandhi in voiceovers.
He does crack a smile once in a while, sometimes thanks to the supposed humor of his roommate (Tate Ellington).
Tyler begins dating Ally, initially because he sees it as a way of getting back at the cop — although how exactly this would work is something screenwriter Will Fetters doesn’t seem to have cared much about.
Most of the film is a moody, low-lit, urban romance, and kind of appealing as that: young lovers in the big city, flopping in cheap apartments and living out a shapeless, pre-adult existence.
Coming at the end of all this is a plot turn that will either strike you as a gimmick or a tragic twist of fate. I guess it’s a spoiler, although the movie probably works better if you know what’s coming.
Director Allen Coulter, who made the similarly darkish “Hollywoodland,” might make a really interesting movie at some point. This one is likely to be embraced, probably exclusively, by the “Twilight” world’s Team Edward and other impressionable types.
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