Remember Me

Directed by Allen Coulter. Starring Robert Pattinson, Emilie de Ravin, Chris Cooper, Lena Olin, Tate Ellington, Ruby Jerins, Pierce Brosnan 15A cert, gen release, 113 min

WATCHING this disappointing attempt to propel Robert Pattinson into the land of the living is a little like attending a particularly over-extended, more than usually fractious New Year's Eve party. Hours and hours of tedium – well, 113 minutes anyway – precede an eventual payoff that flashes by in a blurred instant. If you do decide to see the film and find yourself wondering if something, anythingis ever going to happen, then relax.

A recognisable event occurs in the closing 10 minutes. It will cause some to recoil in outraged nausea. It will cause more (count me in) to wallow in pride at having seen it coming. But you can’t deny that the event is an event. No more specific information will spoil these pages.

To that point, Remember Mehas, essentially, been a Slacker (not to say "slacker") variation on Rebel Without a Cause. Pattinson plays the depressed son of a distant, heartless financier, who, though not actually named Thomas Crown, is inhabited by Pierce Brosnan's version of that character. Some years before the film begins (ask yourself when that is), Rob's brother committed suicide and the family has been in chaos ever since.

Though he somehow manages to retain a place in New York University, the hero has fallen into a self-lacerating pattern of boozing, snoozing and brawling. The depths of his degradation are such that (only Russian Mafiosi and heroine addicts sink so low in mainstream film these days) he smokes cigarettes in front of innocent children. Burn him! Burn him!

Remember Meis actually pretty well made. Shot in a rather lovely grey fug, it shows off its New York locations to good effect and allows Pattinson, a decent actor yet to be stretched, plenty of opportunities to exercise his powerful sulk glands.

Mind you, Pattinson already appears horribly burdened by the Twilightpersona. When his character walks into a classroom full of young girls, it seems genuinely bizarre that they don't tear him to shreds in a fury of pre-pubescent lust. Maybe he should try playing somebody who smiles once in a while.