Buoy meets girl
Cert 12A ★★★★ In cinemas now
It’s the near future, it’s too hot to go out during the day and gondolas are pootling down the flooded streets of a neon-lit, nocturnal Miami. But the city’s more cinematic appearance is wasted on the locals. They are so fed up with fretting over rising sea levels that they have turned to reminiscing about happier, drier times.
This is where Hugh Jackman’s ex-soldier Nick Bannister has found a lucrative niche.
In a soggy former bank, Nick and partner Watts (Thandiwe Newton) operate a high-tech bathtub wired up to a computer, a microphone and a holographic screen.
With the ex-soldier as their guide, punters can relive their past experiences in vivid detail.
If you’ve felt left out by the recent flood of remakes and superhero sagas then this absorbing, grown-up debut feature from Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy will offer a welcome trip down memory lane. Beneath the sci-fi trappings, this standalone summer blockbuster (remember those?) evolves into an old-fashioned film noir when cynical Nick has a brush with a femme fatale.
Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson plays sultry singer Mae who sashays into Nick’s joint, asking for help locating a set of lost keys. While viewing her memories, Nick falls for her as she sings a haunting and eerily familiar number on-stage. A passionate romance ends with her sudden disappearance. Obsessed Nick can’t let her go, turning his back on his business to trace her, investigating her dark past and links to a New Orleans drug dealer and a wealthy “land baron”. The production design and action scenes are largely forgettable but the dialogue is sharp and the smart script poses chewy questions about the relationship between memory and identity. If you saw the brilliant first series of Westworld, this may feel reassuringly familiar.
Sci-fi evolves into an old-fashioned film noir with a femme fatale