Maybe what feels unique about Reminiscence is that it’s the first dystopian neo-noir in an era when it’s categorically impossible to deny that we’re living in a dystopian climate (literally). And, speaking of climates, one of the key elements of Lisa Joy’s film is the rising of the sea levels that have led to an over-flooded Miami. Well, at least most of Miami. Unsurprisingly, the rich have found a way to cordon off all the “drylands” for themselves, while the poor live in the flooded Sunken Coast where, soon enough, the waters will over-flood their homes, driving them out with no place to go except the “next life.”
Joy, as the co-creator of Westworld, presents us with a bleak future we’ve seen in many filmic scenarios before, yet there’s something more ominous and chilling about Reminiscence. Something in the fact that everyone is going about their lives as though there’s nothing completely catastrophic going on. In many ways, it mirrors how we’re acting in the present because, as people like to say, “What can you do? You can’t stop living.” But our shrugging attitude toward the environment is what will, in fact, lead us to stop living—at best, merely surviving.
As Joy’s directorial debut, we see the skills of her imaginative writing (don’t forget, she also wrote episodes of Pushing Daisies) at work, imbuing her lead character, Nick (Hugh Jackman), not to be confused with Carraway, with a kind of Bogart as Philip Marlowe tone as he gives his deadpan voiceovers. Starting with, “The past can haunt a man. That’s what they say.” And yes, it’s about to for Nick, an ex-Navy officer formerly assigned to “guard” the border before water exploded everywhere and border enforcement became essentially a moot point. As Nick describes the present, “When the waters rose and war broke out, there wasn’t a lot to look forward to. So people began looking back. The tank started as an interrogation tool, and since then, nostalgia’s become a way of life.”
The tank in question is how Nick and his business partner, Watts (Thandiwe Newton), make their scant amount of money. By putting people in this former war torturing device—torture because some people don’t want to remember certain things—the duo is able to access whatever part of a person’s life they want to see. Nick, with his hypnotic voice, is an ideal shepherd for that journey, almost like a modern-day Charon, complete with the presence of water. But most of his clients don’t see reminiscence as hell, so much as a bit of heaven. A chance to access the person they love and miss with crystal-clear clarity, as though they’re actually still in that time.
Nick himself hasn’t yet fallen prey to the temptation of the machine. That will come after Mae (Rebecca Ferguson, who has previously worked with Jackman on The Greatest Showman) walks into his life. Entering the place so she can conjure the memory of her lost keys, Watts is quick to shut her down with, “We’re closed, try a locksmith.” Nick, on the other hand, is magnetized enough to say they have time for one more.
After watching the needed sequence to find where the keys are, Nick makes Watts keep the memory going as Mae takes the stage where she works to sing “Where or When” (written by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, and popularized by Lena Horne). Mae does her best imitation of Lana Del Rey in the “Blue Velvet” video, though she calls her gowns “thrift store” finds, which is hard to believe. Transfixed by her performance not only because of her electricity but because it was a song his grandmother used to sing, Nick takes it as another sign of fate when Mae leaves her earrings behind. He takes them back to her the following “day”—which now means night because “when the sun rises, Miami turns into a ghost town. To escape the heat of the day, the city’s become nocturnal.”
The foreshadowing of what’s to come reveals itself in many pieces of dialogue. Like when, employing his Marlowe aura again, Nick remarks, “Sleep doesn’t come easy. We’re all haunted by something.” While some are saying Reminiscence borrows too heavily from the likes of Blade Runner, what feels most present is Inception, complete with the obsessive pursuit of a woman who ultimately can only exist in Nick’s mind. It isn’t until about thirty minutes in that we realize Nick is merely living inside the memories (an effect similar to those in Inception waking from a dream), having become addicted to using the tank. A nostalgia junkie, if you will. Watts is tired of it, telling him to live in the here and now, and that Mae has most certainly moved on. But Nick can’t believe that. Refuses to. For it would mean that everything he felt with her the past several months was a lie. And he can’t abide that. Having found a glimmer of hope and meaning in this dystopian nightmare, he isn’t so ready to “just give up.”
Even the people around him—who should have given up long ago—keep persisting for whatever reason. Maybe because human beings are not programmed to kill themselves when they know they probably should. Thus, walking through the city (often wading), Nick muses, “The displaced carry on the best they can. One day, the ocean will reclaim all of this.” A flash to South Beach’s “Sunken Coast” district is shown as he says this. The place where the majority of the population has been relegated because of land “barons” like the Sylvans, who control all the drylands after having bought them up—and cheaply, to boot. Nick, eventually finding the trail to Mae leading to this odious family, informs us, “The Sylvans, like all other barons, live in the drylands. They build dams to insulate themselves, pushing the waves into the surrounding areas. The barons stay afloat by drowning everyone else. They say the only ones to survive the Titanic were the rich and the rats. The barons are both.”
Joy’s prescient description is no doubt what we’ll find happening in the future, with the rich finding plenty of “creative” (read: disgusting and morally reprehensible) ways to uphold the lifestyle they’re “accustomed to” by steamrolling over any broke asses who get in their way. In short, there will always be a The White Lotus location for those who can afford it. The recently deceased patriarch of the Sylvan family, Walter (Brett Cullen), is the link to Mae that Nick needs to better understand in order to get back on her trail. Walter’s wife, Tamara (Marina de Tavira), has been “burned,” meaning she’s trapped in the same memory loop where she first announced her pregnancy with her only child, Sebastian (Mojean Aria). Except Sebastian isn’t Walter’s “only” child. And the thing about that is, as a certain henchman puts it, “The rich, they really don’t like it when a bastard branch sprouts off its precious family tree.” No indeed, the rich really don’t like much of anything that indicates they’re not fully in control.
That even includes the likes of “gentle” Jay Gatsby, who once famously said, “Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!” Believing as much, he would surely enjoy the more life-like reminiscence opportunities presented by “the tank,” himself likely liable to live inside of it if it meant recreating all of his best moments with Daisy Buchanan. In this regard, Nick is absolutely correct when he seethes, “Only the rich mold the world to meet their delusions.”
And even though Nick makes his living off other people’s thirst for nostalgia before he himself goes down the rabbit hole, he tells Mae, “Memories are like perfume: better in small doses.” This itself referring to the idea that one’s strongest memories are tied to scent. One doubts Proust would be as into this futuristic contraption as Gatsby though.
As Nick goes down a darker and more dangerous path to unveil the truth about Mae, he’s led to the crime underworld in New Orleans, where Mae was addicted to a drug called baca. Seeing who she was through the memory of a criminal whose mind he’s asked to “investigate” by the DA’s office, Nick also notices a shadowy, shady character named Cyrus Booth (Cliff Curtis). It is he who will hold the ultimate key to Mae’s whereabouts as Nick descends into what he calls hell to find her by following this lead. It’s a callout that all harkens back to a moment between Nick and Mae when she said, “Tell me a story.” He returns, “A story? What kind of story?” She insists, “One with a happy ending.” He, equally as insistent, reminds, “No such thing as a happy ending. All endings are sad. Especially if the story was happy.” She suggests, “Then tell me a happy story, but end it in the middle.” Nick inquires, “Have you heard of Orpheus and Eurydice?” Little did Nick know then, he was about to live it himself.
Having cornered Cyrus, the conversation that takes place before their violent standoff is intended to remind Nick (and the rest of us) that, as usual, we’re no better than base animals. Cyrus accordingly declares, “When the waves came, they washed away our lies. Revealed what this world has always been. A wilderness with one rule: survive or die. A place like that is beyond good and evil. Only sin left is self-deception. Telling yourself that you’re better than everyone else. That you deserve to be standing while everyone else sinks.” He concludes, “You’re just an empty man looking for a woman to blame.” But even if part of that is true, there’s no denying Nick’s love for Mae is real—regardless of being founded on obsession. Something, once again, Gatsby knows all about.
As usual, in the permutation of love gone wrong, there is someone off in the distance experiencing unrequited affections from the person who is fixated on another. Yes, of course, Watts is in love with Nick, who never sees what’s right in front of his face. As the film comes to its bittersweet conclusion, Watts informs us that, “Missing people is a part of this world. Without that sadness, you can’t taste the sweet.” Thing is, you can never taste “the sweet” when there’s nothing but sadness. As is sure to be the case when we reach the foretold juncture of the film’s depiction of Miami (and beyond).
