A Lesson in Love

When I previewed Remember Me last month, I said I was sooo there, ready to see it.

I didn’t know much about the movie, other than it stars Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin (TV’s Lost), as a boy and a girl who meet sorta by chance, sorta not in New York sometime around early summer 2001.

Well, in this rom-dram his Tyler and her Ally fall in love, and help each other come out the other end of the tunnel of pain they’re traveling through. I anticipated this would be an angst-y movie, but it never occurred to me just how much so. This is not just the love story of two quite photogenic people – this is their tragedy.

Remember Me opens 10 years earlier than that, though, with a defining moment in Ally’s life marked by senseless violence and loss. Flashing forward to 2001, we meet her as she is, a Queens girl to school at NYU with a police sergeant father (Chris Cooper) that is fiercely protective of her.

For his part, Tyler, almost 22, is a rebellious young man prone to trouble with the law – but he’s not a bad boy, you know, although he drinks and smokes too much and seems to have a chip on his soulder. He’s just drifting along, auditing classes at NYU, and carrying baggage heavied by his own past encounter with loss. Oh, and his dad (Pierce Brosnan) is a bit of a unattentive jerk, too, and Tyler has nothing but contempt for him.

Our boy Ty didn’t think anyone could possibly understand what he was going through until the day he met Ally through an unusual twist of fate. And you know fate – it has a wicked sense of humor.

But meet they do, and although love was the last thing on his mind and his intentions with her were anything but pure at first, he finds that Ally’s spirit unexpectedly heals and inspires him. He’s still haunted, but he’s found a kindred.

Through their love, he begins to find happiness and meaning in his life. But soon, as hidden secrets are revealed, like – Cliché Alert! (one of many) – the circumstances that brought them together, their glorious summer of love begins to fall apart. (Among the other clichés that cost this one a star: cheesy dialogue that aims for WB/CW-like erudition.)

Remember Me wants to be an unforgettable story about the power of love, the strength of family (Tyler is thisclose to his little sister Caroline, the only person around who he can let his guard down…until Ally), and the importance of living life to the fullest and treasuring every day. Forgiveness and letting go are also important themes.

What happens at the end of the movie, the way it makes you feel, it doesn’t have a lot to do with Tyler and Ally’s relationship. I’ve sprinkled hints here and there throughout this review that should clue you in on the final fate of Tylly because I didn’t and couldn’t spoil it, which people agree is hard. Anyone with a memory and a sense for plot twists should be able to figure it out, though.

I will say, however, that the event that tears them asunder, it combined a mix of morbidity and too sooness that didn’t sit well with me. It left an exploitative taste in my mouth, and it kinda cheapened the whole thing. Sorry Emilie de Ravin, you deserved better. Ditto Robert Pattinson (although kudos for showing you can do more than just vamp it.).

My Rating **

Photo: Summit Entertainment.