REMEMBER

A wonderful first 90 minutes is called into question by its final five

Iwanted to love Remember, Atom Egoyan’s most straightforward, accessible movie in years. After the debacle that was last year’s The Captive and the critical shoulder shrug that greeted Devil’s Knot in 2013, this thoughtful, thought-provoking Canadian filmmaker seemed due for a hit.

So let’s leave aside the way the film unravelled (for me at least) in its closing moments, leaving a bad taste and more than one “yes, but if this then ...” questions. Let’s look instead at its first 90 minutes, which unspool in a wonderfully, deceptively linear way.

Zev, played by Christopher Plummer, is living in an old-age home in New York and starting to lose his mind. His wife of many decades has just passed away, yet every time he awakes her name is on his lips, and he has to be reminded that she is no more.

Helping Zev deal with his loss is Max (Martin Landau) an old friend with an agenda. He reminds Zev of an agreement they’ve had since before Ruth died; Zev is going to skip town and track down Rudy Kolander, an 88-year-old German immigrant whose real name is Otto Walisch.

It was under that name that “Rudy” ordered the deaths of Zev’s and Max’s families at Auschwitz during the Second World War. The only wrinkle in the plan — aside from Zev’s rapidly deteriorating memory — is that there are four Rudy Kurlanders in North America of the correct age and nationality.

So, like a cross between the 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared and — well, the Terminator, tracking down all the Sarah Connors in 1984 Los Angeles — Zev sets out to find his prey. “They never go far,” the home’s supervisor tells his distraught offspring, by which point Zev is already on a train and halfway to Cleveland.

There are a few other snatches of humour in the story, not least of which is how Zev manages to casually procure a Glock (an Austrian gun, the seller tells him, though many people assume it’s German) and then almost accidentally carry it into Canada and back on one of his Kolander-searching side trips. But Egoyan keeps the tension high with a Hitchcockianly suspenseful score, heavy on violins and piccolos.

Meanwhile there is Plummer, now a spry 85, turning in a brilliantly nuanced performance. Zev — which means wolf, by the way — is a man propelled by vengeance, a sense of justice and world-weariness, itself fuelled by the death of his wife and because he’s been on this planet such a long time, dealing with the lingering after-image of an almost inconceivably brutal event.

But the details if not their emotional impact are fading in Zev’s mind, giving his quest a Mementolike quality as he reads and rereads Max’s handwritten note for guidance and reassurance. The Rudys, meanwhile, are a diverse and fascinating bunch; one of them, Bruno Ganz, is remembered for a simmering portrayal of Adolf Hitler in 2004’s Downfall. And Dean Norris (Breaking Bad) stands out as a second-generation Nazi.

It’s almost enough to forgive the final-act twist. Rest assured this is a delicately crafted and enjoyable film. And if for some reason you have to duck out early, you might even enjoy it a little more.

Remember opens in limited release on Oct. 23. ∂∂∂

This is a delicately crafted film, but if you have to duck out early, you might even enjoy it a little more

Veteran actors Martin Landau, left, and Christopher Plummer play residents of a seniors homewho resolve to find a former Auschwitz official now living under the name of Rudy Kolander.