101 - Before I Go to Sleep

    A woman survives a savage beating, after which she becomes an amnesiac, forgetting everything she learns when she goes to sleep each night.  With a few tools and some help, she tries to piece together what has happened with her life.
    There’s an obvious comparison to be made to Memento.  But this is much more straightforward.  Most of what makes Memento work is the unusual structure.  In this case, it runs in a pretty linear way.  And the memory reset points are much further apart.
    The story starts off well enough, as she starts to untangle what she can learn about her history.  The audience is kept in the dark, wondering about the reliability of all of the secondary characters, and waiting to see what revelations will reshape our expectations.  It’s still pretty slow moving though.
    The real problem comes with the last act.  Once we learn the truth, we start to question the validity of the solution.  That’s where it gets bad.  It’s hard to feel like the ending makes much sense.  The antagonist didn’t have much motivation to do what he did.
    Thinking about that made me realize how much I dislike the usage of amnesia as a story device.  Especially in this situation, resetting just pads out the length.  In fact, the story would probably work better if she had a single major memory loss.
    It’s still a reasonably well-made movie, and it kept my attention pretty well.  But after seeing it, I don’t think I’d ever want to revisit it.