I finally watched Reminiscence, Lisa Joy’s merger of cli-fi and noir. I hoped to like it more, as she has plans in place to adapt William Gibson’s work to the screen and, well, she’s married to Christopher Nolan’s little brother so… All of that is to say she has film bona fides. She co-wrote Westworld, she has Nolan as an alpha reader… what more can be asked? Well, characters. I’d ask for better characters.
A compelling character has something about them that makes them unique but instantly familiar. They are connected to the experiencer in a way that makes us want to feel what is at stake. This can be done in a number of ways, but the key way is for us to understand their core motivation or at least for us to see our own motivations mirrored in their actions. This is not easy work. If it were, all fiction would be good fiction. It is not. Therefore the lack of ease is clearly demonstrated. Stephen King is a master at this. The team that writes as J.A. Corey is a master at this. In her own way Stephanie Meyer is a master at this. Lisa Joy can create compelling characters, but the motivation of said characters does not persist long enough to sustain a movie or even more than two seasons of a TV show.
I wish it were different, but it isn’t.