Before I Go To Sleep

“Well, what’s she like?”

“Oh, she’s just one of those women, you know; if you like football you must be a yob. Bollocks.”

“Is she fit?”

“Not that you’d prove her point or anything.”

Before I Go To Sleep is not the first film to feature both Colin Firth and Mark Strong; that honour goes to Fever Pitch, from which the above dialogue is taken (Firth is the first speaker, Strong the second). They worked together again on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Firth and Kidman worked together on The Railway Man, and were going to be reunited on Paddington before Firth was replaced by Ben Whishaw. Before I Go To Sleep is directed by Rowan Joffe, who directed the recent adaptation of Brighton Rock, wrote the George Clooney curio The American, and is the son of Roland Joffe, who directed The Killing Fields and The Mission, it’s produced by Ridley Scott, based on a best-selling novel. Firth has won an Oscar (for the wrong film) as has Kidman. Strong is bald and bald men are not only highly intelligent but also make the best lovers. So this film comes with a good pedigree; decent actors who have worked together well in the past with a young, up and coming director and a successful source material.

It largely lives up to that pedigree, too.  I only read books by or about members of the special forces, so I can’t comment on how well (or not) it sticks to the events of the novel, but I was gripped by the film as it turns one way, then another, then another.

Briefly, Kidman plays a woman who wakes up every morning with no memory. Firth has to explain that she had an accident, that they are married, and she forgets all the memories she builds up when she goes to sleep every night. Strong plays an attractive (bald men are sexy) doctor treating her without Firth’s knowledge.  It becomes clear that Firth isn’t telling the whole truth. We are led down one alley that turns out to be a dead end, then another, as Kidman, and us, piece together what happened.

Close ups of Kidman’s eyes abound, and the cinematography reflects the blue-grey of her iris. It is a cold, grey, house in cold, grey South London (nice to see somewhere in Greenwich that’s not the Old Naval College make an appearance in a film) where Kidman and Firth live.  It’s a cold, grey reservoir where Strong meets Kidman (and the film takes us down a dead end). It’s a shame that Firth and Strong only share one scene, as we never really get to see how much more attractive a bald man like Strong is than Firth.

I had low expectations of Before I Go To Sleep, but it works as an update of an early 1990s psychological thriller.  I expected it to be a middle class Memento without the murders, but it’s more than that, and also features the best use of an iron as a weapon since the first Home Alone film.

Oh yeah, the whole of Fever Pitch (with Turkish subtitles) is on YouTube. It was directed by a Wolves fan. Watch it. “It’s not the smoking, Steve, it’s the crapness.” Great line.