Director: Rowan Joffe
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong
Running Time: 92 mins
Certificate: 15
Synopsis: A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.
Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth are husband and wife again for BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP, the tense thriller based on the debut novel by SJ Watson. Christine (Kidman) wakes every morning with no memory of the previous ten years, or the life she’s had. Every morning, her husband Ben (Firth) explains that she loses any new memories every night when she goes to sleep.
Unbeknownst to Ben (and – until he reminds her – Christine), Christine has been seeing a doctor who is working out new ways of getting her memory back and bit by bit the pieces are falling back into place thanks to the diary she is keeping.
Christine’s world is small – with only these two people to confide in – and Kidman does a superb job of displaying the duality of her complex character. Though she is scared and struggling to trust anyone, she is also fiercely determined to get better and believes that discovering the truth to the accident which caused her memory loss is the key. Firth, in contrast, is breathtaking as the man struggling to cope with his wife’s illness. There is so much conveyed but rarely spoken between the pair of them and it helps to build on the suspense and intrigue of the story.
BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP is superbly paced and ramps up the tension gradually, pulling you in at a comfortable rate until you realise you’re suddenly in too deep. Yet, despite the relatively slow beginning, the film never lulls thanks to the phenomenal cast who each keep you guessing as to quite who can be trusted and who has ulterior motives.
Of course, everyone in life has their own motivations for doing what they do but some are more noble than others. It is this incredibly complex character focus that makes this story such compulsive viewing right to the very end.
Riveting and tense, BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP will keep you on the edge of your seat until you – like Christine – know the truth. Writer/director Rowan Joffe has made an incredibly faithful adaptation here that is also an exciting and eye-opening exploration into the human psyche and just how much our memories make us who we are.
[usr=4] BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP is released on September 5th.
