Italian melodrama usually sets an hysterical tone and director Gabrriele Muccino is happy to exploit the custom. Emotional extravagance is as central to Remember Me as the familiar notion of unfulfilled dreams that hang off two mid-life crises brought on by a crumbling marriage. The dilemma spills into the lives of a couple’s teenage children when an ordinary Roman family is torn apart by parents who face their meaningless lives and embrace ‘what could have been’. Carlo walks away from his corporate job to write the book he knew was deep inside. It doesn’t help that he takes his muse, an old flame, as a new lover. In retaliation, Guilia joins a theatre company to become the actress she had longed to be. Indifferent results fuel the others contempt as the children duck for cover – Valentina heads for television while Paolo searches for himself amid the howling self-centeredness of his family.
Surprisingly, Remember Me is a joyful expression of misery – even while the family fights, and it fight a lot, each of them manage to find a version of themselves that is free and wholly their own. If only for a fleeting moment, they reach a place that makes the stressful bitterness worthwhile. Muccino then diverts their course with an interesting device that makes the narrative journey, while not wholly unusual, unexpected. Remember Me is a suitably fitful affair with languid scenes punctuated by sharp, emotional turns that keep the film well and truly alive. Thankfully not all families behave like this warring group yet their trials provide a mirror in which to reflect upon our own aspirations, fulfilled or otherwise.
// COLIN FRASER