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RATING:   
SINGAPORE : First-time feature film director Allen Coulter wants "Remember Me" to be a typical angsty romance for swooners, a heart-on-the-sleeve story about two wounded souls finding each other. Girls will watch it because Edward Cullen is in it.
We know right from the start that the relationship between passionate lovers Ally (Emilie de Ravin) and Tyler (Robert Pattinson) won't last because the film opens with an ode to the temporary people who permanently affect our lives. Theirs is that all-encompassing 20-something young love that throws itself off the rails.
It is not simply the display of how much "Twilight's" Pattinson needs an acting intervention to add to his one expression (brood much?) that ruins the film - it's the "twist" at the end that really kicks you in the guts.
Covered in flowers and hearts, no less, the twist punctuates a maudlin, ham-fisted project, complete with a gauche script. One can't help but wonder if screenwriter Will Fetters came up with this twist first and then banged out the over-emotional drivel that surrounds it.
Most (not all) of the film is banal and paced painfully slow, suggesting the director's inability to stage a scene, even if he does frame New York beautifully.
But even as the fantastic Chris Cooper and Pierce Brosnan give strong turns playing the couple's very different dads, with de Ravin delivering earnestly, it is that ending you will remember.
Some will be moved with goosebump emotion; others, perhaps more discerning, will see it as tasteless and emotionally manipulative.
- TODAY/ra
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