The new science fiction film Reminiscence has finally released in theatres
and there's a lot of questions to answer. The film by Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy, who wrote
and directed the project, has given us a fantastic neo-noir about memory.
I'm going to be explaining the plot, the ending and the mind-bending twists in the aim to help you
guys gather a greater sense of what happened. This analysis will contain spoilers,
so if you do happen to be someone who hasn't seen the film, then I would recommend watching
this video after you've seen it. But if you want to see more on Reminiscence in the coming weeks,
then don't forget to support this video by giving it a like rating, subscribing to the channel and
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But without further ado, let's dive into the plot and ending of Reminiscence explained.
So Reminiscence is a film that has snuck up on us without barely any marketing,
but it does boast a few elements to get people intrigued. The film has a great cast starring
Hugh Jackman, Thandiwe Newton and Rebecca Ferguson and debuted on HBO Max in the US
and in cinemas worldwide. But the film boasts not only a great cast but a brilliant creative
auteur in Westworld's co-creator Lisa Joy. Like Westworld, Reminiscence takes place in a vaguely
near-future world in which technological advancement and societal downfall go hand in hand,
linked together by the basest human nature. Within this, we follow an army veteran turned private
investigator of sorts, in Hugh Jackman's Nick Bannister, who uses a special machine to trawl
through people's memories. He does everything from allowing people to relive their happiest moments
to help them find their keys. But his life is changed when Rebecca Ferguson's Mae enters,
and when she vanishes without a trace he turns his talents to finding her,
an obsession that develops as he struggles to learn the truth
about who she really was.
We begin this journey in Miami, Florida which has suffered a natural disaster
and is now mostly flooded. Wealthy people, now known as Barons, have bought up the 'dry land'
in the ensuing chaos and built dams to keep themselves free of floods,
while the 'sunken coast' and the rest of the city
are left to fend for themselves. Unbearable heat has led to a mostly nocturnal population,
who make their livings in bars and shops navigated by boats along streets that are now
rivers. Nick and Emily "Watts" Sanders, played by Thandiwe Newton runs a facility that allows people
to relive their memories, called reminiscences, which are displayed in a 3D computer hologram
as the individual relives them, sedated, in a water tank. The science is never really
explained and I think some more explanation into this would have helped really develop
and flesh out the world-building and logic within the story beats. But there are some cool aspects
shown in the film such as the police using the machines, leading depositions into people's
memories to help build cases. Also these memories, once viewed, are stored on cards
and held in a padlocked vault. The records, Nick explains, are for everyone's protection.
So it's clear there's no funny business on anyone's part.
But one day a beautiful woman named Mae arrives to ask them to help find her keys,
which they do, in turn leaving behind a pair of earrings. Nick tracks her down and they
begin a love affair for the ages, but it soon becomes clear that this love we're watching grow
is actually a memory Nick is reliving. In the 'present', Mae has vanished and
Nick is haunted by her absence, so he begins to try and track her down but Watts is worried about
him and their struggling business. Even their regular customer Elsa,
played by Angela Sarafyan, who is also a Westworld regular, hasn't come to relive
her memory with her old-man lover. Not to mention that Walter Sylvan, one of the Barons, whom the
District Attorney has been trying unsuccessfully to prosecute, has died,
but a judge has ruled that all his land will go to his son Sebastian and his wife Tamara. Nick,
of course, doesn't care about this at the time because all he cares about is finding Mae.
And through the memory hunting, he discovers that she used to be a drug addict
living in New Orleans, leading to him going there to see if she had returned. Instead,
he finds a drug dealer named Saint Joe with a chip on his shoulder and they have a near-fatal fight,
only for Watts to come to his rescue. The two return to Miami, but Nick can't let it go, and
Watts eventually reveals to him through her memory that the day before she vanished, Mae came to her
and they had an honest conversation in which she revealed her past, and Watts likewise revealed she
has an estranged daughter. But Mae takes advantage of a moment alone to slip into the vault and steal
a memory card. The stolen card belonged to Elsa, and Nick realises that the man Elsa
had been reliving in her memories was none other than the now-deceased Walter. He and Watts argue,
and he fires her, but of course, this won't be for long due to their close bond. Nick then
heads to find Elsa, only to discover that she had been murdered and her son had been kidnapped by
a red-headed woman, who he rightly assumes to be Mae. To figure out where Mae went, he finds Cyrus,
a dirty cop-turned-henchman who has popped up in various memories. After another near-fatal fight,
he kidnaps Cyrus and examines his memories, which reveal the truth he's been looking for.
In Cyrus' memory, Mae details her story in which she was an addict that had been coerced
by Cyrus into setting Nick up, in order for them to steal Elsa's memory and find out where she
and her son were, by order of Walter.
However, in the ending, it's revealed to Nick that Mae did truly fall in love with him. She completed
the mission but by then Walter had died and Sebastian wanted his half-brother out of the way,
so he ordered both their deaths. Mae tailed Cyrus to Elsa and rescued her son
so he wouldn't be killed. When Cyrus asks where she's taken the boy, she says "You know,
I already told you, it's the one place I could think of to feel safe". And we realise that she
knows that Nick will eventually find this memory, and it's clear that she's actually
talking to him. She took him to a remote house out on the water where she had once
been rescued by the owner, a solitary woman named Frances, which is a story she'd told to Nick in
one moment of vulnerability. She then proceeds to overdose, knowing that the only way to keep the
boy safe is to destroy access to her memory, and flings herself out a window. In reaction to this
and finding out the truth, Nick turns up the voltage on the machine to fry Cyrus' brain,
searing this memory into his brain forever. He then heads to Sebastian, where an entire
world has been set up to keep Tamara (who has had a memory of her own seared into her brain)
from losing her mind, replaying a time when she and Walter were happy. Nick confronts Sebastian,
telling him he knows that it was he who sent Cyrus to kill Elsa
and the boy, but that it's too late now, as he's already told the police where to find him.
Following this, Nick goes to the facility where Watts now works to tell her what happened.
He reveals he cut a deal with the DA in order to get away with having purposefully fried Cyrus'
brains after finding out what happened. But even after escaping the situation,
we learn in a short final scene that Nick has actually imprisoned himself for years and years
leading into the future. I guess to him it's the only way he can feel happy regarding his obsession
and we learn that he essentially keeps reliving his own memories of Mae,
which is narrated film-noir style, the same narration that the audience themselves hear.
Its many years in the future and Watts is now a grandmother, checking in on old Nick, who is still
in the tank, reliving his brief relationship with Mae forever until his death. Despite how
confusing it might seem, it's actually a fairly straightforward ending to a story about love,
money, and revenge. And although I had a lot of issues with the pacing, the fleshing out
of story points and lack of world-building on display, I must say, this idea is one that I
do applaud in a time where we don't get that many original films on this kind of budget.
But that was my video explaining the plot of Lisa Joy's Reminiscence. Like I was alluding to,
the idea of Reminiscence was actually a great one. It links into the themes of old noirs and modern
sci-fi films and I think the setup and potential were all there. However, I do think the execution
could have been a lot better, with at times the script being light and there not being enough
worldbuilding to support the story. This is something that Lisa Joy did so well in Westworld,
especially her episode from season 2 and I can't lie when I say I was disappointed with elements
like these in her first film. I think there's so much going on here and it's a film that may have
benefitted from better dialogue and more time for greater fleshing out of multiple elements
and central ideas. Is Lisa Joy better suited to the medium of TV,
maybe, but again, I do think that the ideas she tackled had the potential to be really memorable.
It might change for me on rewatches, and I definitely will give it another run-through,
but right now, I am slightly disappointed with this latest effort from the Westworld co-creator.
Hopefully, that will change with upcoming projects like the Fallout TV Series and Westworld Season
4 which I'm still really excited for, but we will just have to see. I'm giving Reminiscence
a 6.75 out of 10. I hope this did help some of you guys understand the film a bit better
and I'm looking forward to hearing what you thought of Lisa Joy's Reminiscence,
so don't forget to let me know down below in the comments section.
But for more content on films like Reminiscence,
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