- I know that “family members grieve in their own way after the death of a son/brother” stories are a dime a dozen, but this movie could have been much better off if it had focused on this area of the film instead of having it as background scenery to an uninteresting romance. Tyler and Ally don’t interest me as a couple; college kids getting through their quarter-life crises together while living in squalor and trying to damn the man don’t feel any more real to me than those same people did when I was actually in university and unfortunately surrounded by people like this.
At the complete other end of the spectrum, I was most engaged when Tyler was hanging out with his younger sister Caroline, with the two of them working out their different personal issues together through the intersection of their shared traumas. Everything about Tyler’s life seemed infinitely less tiresome when framed by his relationship with Caroline rather than his relationship with Ally; when Ally discovers Tyler’s tattoo of Michael’s name, you want to gag on the obviousness (IT’S OVER HIS HEART!) and yet when Tyler and Caroline broach the subject of their dead sibling, I’m better able to grasp Michael’s absence in their lives.
- Not sure what type of accent Pierce Brosnan was attempting, but I imagine it was supposed to fall somewhere within the incredibly varied “American” family. I think there’s a certain type of role that I like Brosnan in, and this isn’t it. This film could have used a good run by fruiting.
- Was that a Franz Kline in Charles’ office? I really love Kline.
- I love it when two characters have a horrifically awkward confrontation in a room full of people, especially when those people try to leave and are told to sit down and wait it out.
- TYLER’S MIDDLE NAME IS “KEATS”.
- I’m pretty sure the “girl eats her dessert first” quirk has been done before in some other movie, but I can’t remember which one, probably because I blocked it from memory the first time for being so goddamned obnoxious.
- Did not love Chris Cooper’s randomly abrupt drinking problem. I’m drunk at 8:30am only so that I can slap you and give you a reason to run crying to your boyfriend’s cesspool apartment! Um… no. If there was an earlier clue to his alcoholism, I clearly missed it.
- I think that despite appearing as a guy who fetishizes race to the point of keeping a sexual conquest bingo card to check off in his head, we’re apparently supposed to like Tyler’s roommate Aidan. Bonus points for encouraging Ally to drink Jello shooters long after it was clear she was intoxicated!
- Pro-tip, Tyler: it’s inappropriate to violently attack a twelve year-old girl’s desk because she’s been bullying your sister. You’re an effing adult. This is not okay.
- I couldn’t decide what was worse: the fact that the little pre-teen Squad of Evil cut Caroline’s hair in the night, or that the hair cut she got to compensate was clearly a wig that someone from another movie obviously wore while playing someone’s middle aged mom. Worst. Haircut. Ever. Yeah, that will stop the teasing.
- There were not enough opportunities for R PATTZ to make faces like this.
- I was pretty indifferent to this movie for most of its duration and then everything unravelled completely in the last five minutes. You see, the movie takes place in 2001. Time goes by and we’re given various calendar clues as to what time of year it is. Finally it’s Labour Day, Caroline goes back to school, people start getting back into their routines, etc. Caroline’s teacher writes on the chalkboard that it’s Thursday, September 6th. A couple of days pass and Tyler has to meet with his lawyer for throwing a fire extinguisher through the window of Caroline’s classroom door. But Tyler, who has been an unkempt underachiever with a disregard for the rules this whole movie, decides that Today is a New Day™ and he’s going to meet the lawyer at his dad’s office early. In fact, he gets there even earlier than his dad because his dad is suddenly taking an interest in Caroline, his estranged daughter, by picking her up and taking her to school. Tyler goes up to his dad’s office and sits down at his desk only to discover that his screensaver is comprised of a photo slide show of Michael, Tyler, and Caroline as kids. HE REALLY DOES CARE! Tyler gets up and goes to the row of windows in his dad’s office, a row of windows we haven’t really seen at all throughout the movie because their shape and spacing are far too familiar to reveal before now. He looks out the window, and then the camera angle changes so that we see him from outside the glass, before the camera pans back to reveal… THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.
I’m not even kidding.
I figured with 2001 setting, obviously someone was going to die on September 11. That was a given. That Ally’s dad was a cop made him a likely candidate and that Tyler had an emotional death rattle all movie made him a prime candidate for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But putting Tyler IN ONE OF THE TOWERS completely destroys any meaning his death could have had to the audience because it’s such a shady, cheap, and shallow way to tell a story. There’s no attempt to create any sense of real emotion at the end of the film, it’s all manufactured in a series of carefully-scored vignettes of how Tyler has affected people’s lives. It’s like the writers just said “Okay, people still have strong feelings about 9/11, let’s co-opt those feelings to make them care about our protagonist’s death.” Wrong.
Also, the fact that a) Caroline’s teacher had to write “Tuesday, September 11, 2001″ on the chalkboard, and b) people actually didn’t figure out what day it was until she did this depresses me.
- I admit it, I think it would be kind of hilarious to go into a book store and find that the titles were grouped by authors who had slept together and then died and/or gone to prison (I think).
Remember Me
A.K.A. How To Ruin A Movie In One Fell Swoop.
IMDB Plot Synopsis A romantic drama centered on two new lovers: Tyler, whose parents have split in the wake of his brother's suicide, and Ally, who lives each day to the fullest since witnessing her mother's murder.
Wow, your first bechdel test: pass! That’s… sad.
It’s for a micro-scene where Ally and Tyler’s mom have a conversation about being social workers. Of course, as they always warn you, just because a movie passes the test on some small level it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily kind to women. Even Twilight apparently passes.
I’m actually sad this movie wasn’t better than I thought it would be. Can RPATTZ act outside of twilight and HP though?
Oh, and the faces pictures were awesome.
Wait wait, can he act inside of Twlight?! I actually didn’t hate him in this, to be honest.
I spent the last five minutes of the movie hoping that he would get hit by a cab on his bike. I kept on whispering, “Don’t go there. Do not use 9/11 as a plot device/deux ex machina.” Using 9/11 was a cheat that made the rest of the movie seem worse in hindsight.
Before that, to me, the movie was another throwaway romantic/family drama (though I agree the movie worked best when Tyler was interacting with Caroline). It wasn’t brilliant or anything, but it was okay.
This is my long-winded way of agreeing with you.
Yeah, you’re all so right. No, really. I am not being sarcastic. Using 9/11 right at the end was beyond cheap.
If [somebody] had known about this earlier, [somebody] would have called in bomb threats to every cinema showing this film. Like, 2 minutes before it was supposed to start. Like, every single showing.
They don’t deserve to make any money back for making crap like this.