There is a moment, about two-thirds of the way through Remember Me, when a glaring detail grabs the eyeball and will not let go. Robert Pattinson (in the role of Tyler, our brooding, notebook-scribbling, bicycling-emotionally-through-the-rain protagomope) stumbles broodily down the hall to his bedroom wearing—no, not regular pants—the biggest, baggiest, droopiest, lumpiest, Elephant-Manniest, cargoiest cargo pants in the history of disgusting pants and international freight. It jars the mind. Up until this moment, Tyler has been otherwise hot. WHY is he wearing those saggy thigh-diapers? What year does he think it is? Who hired my college RA to do the costume design for this movie? WHAT YEAR IS IT? THOSE CARGO PANTS MAKE ME WANT TO FUCKING LA-LA.

Little did I know, all was to become clear.

Remember Me is a movie about the love-shaped holes that death leaves in our lives, and how we fill them with anger and jokes and alcohol and sex and more death. Tyler, a New York college student still reeling from his older brother’s suicide, meets Ally (Emilie de Ravin, better known as Claaaayah “MOI BAYBEE!” Peanutbuttah on Lost), who is still reeling from her mother’s horrific murder. Meanwhile, he struggles with a brutally distant dad and an oddball little sis; she struggles with an angry cop dad and a propensity for saying annoying shit. They have sex. They cling to each other. They love each other soooooo much.

Despite being emotionally overwrought to the brink of silliness, the film maintains an irresistible modicum of charm—thanks to a wry naturalism in the dialogue, some top-shelf banter, and Pattinson’s preternatural understanding of his angles. I was willing to go with it. I was there.

Remember Me puts its characters (and its audience) through an absurd amount of trauma. There are beatings, arrests, lies, betrayals, heartbreaking moments of bullying, domestic assaults, near-murders, breakups, makeups, tears, hot sexings, apologies, and apologies accepted. At the end of the movie, once everyone’s gone from the meat grinder to the, um, Chicken McNugget meat reconstitution machine and back again, the weather FINALLY breaks. Things are looking up. This is just great. I feel great. Do you feel great?

Two hours have passed. Tyler and Ally say “I love you” for the first time. Ally is smiling and making French toast. Tyler is waiting for his dad (whose heart has finally defrosted) in his high-rise office. The little sister, her tormentors cowed at last, sits contentedly in class. Tyler gazes out the office window at the sunny horizon. The little sister’s teacher moves aside to reveal the date written on the blackboard.

It is September 11, 2001.
The camera pulls back. Tyler, in 2001’s hottest cargo pants, stands framed in the window of the fucking World Trade Center. History’s most famous plane crashes right into Tyler’s stupid face.

Hey, movie! You tortured me. For two hours. FOR THIS? For a cheap September 11 thingy? You might as well have ended with “And it was all a dreeeeeam!!!” I am never going to the movies again.

Wait, what I meant to say was HAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAAAAA. Fuck off. recommended

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

38 replies on “Remember Me: This Whole Review Is One Huge Spoiler”

  8. That’s why they pay you the big bucks, Lindy, for taking these cinematic bullets for us. Adding up all the two-plus-getting-there hours you’ve saved for everyone, that’s at least a year’s worth of good karma.

  10. That’s way more fucked up than Orphan!
    I cannot thank you enough for “spoiling” this movie, although I never really intended to see it either. If I had happened to accidentally see it though, I would have been piiiiiiisssssssssed.

  12. From the trailers, I was absolutely certain the guy was going to die in this movie. *WHAT A TWIST* But I assumed it was secret cancer or something.

  13. @9, Can you spoil Orphan for me? I generally like horror movies of all grades, but won’t watch them alone (I’m alone quite a lot), and therefore will never watch that one. Also, the movie poster looks impossibly stupid so I’m already turned off.

  14. Best spoiler ever.

    Although. Now that I know about the bullshit ending, I kind of think maybe I could sit through it. Because you’d think ahead to the terrorist attack during the beatings and the rapes (did Lindy say there were some rapes?) and just giggle — that’s nothing, movie characters, just wait!

  15. Periodically I just have to click refresh with my “OMG-I-love-Lindy-West” button.

    *click*
    *click*
    *click*

  17. This was reviewed by other reviewers who all found it very disappointing as well.

    Great review, Lindy!

    Oh, by the way, he can’t act his way out of a paper bag, and that REALLY drags the movie down …

  19. I assumed the same thing as #12, or that he’d get in a tragic car accident.

    @14,

    I’m not entirely sure, because I haven’t actually seen The Orphan, but other spoilery people informed me that the young homicidal girl is actually an adult con artist dwarf.

  20. The alleged screenwriters should be shot in a time capsule to the WTC on the same date. Thanks Lindy—now I am REFUSING to take my teens to it, whereas before I was merely reluctant.

  21. BLARGH. I thought this looked fucking ridiculous, but now I’m disgusted just by proxy. Thank you, Lindy West, for your service to the general movie-going public.

  31. I was never going to see that movie, but I too, could tell from the trailer that he was either dead or going to die.

    However, the thought of watching Robert Pattinson get hit by an exploding plane kind of makes me want to see at least that part.

  32. @13 and @32: Caution! You do not actually get to see the plane hit Robert Pattinson’s face! It is merely implied. Zzzzzzzz.

  34. I did see this movie and I really enjoyed the story. I also noticed the pants. Those were AWFUL! It looked like he shat himself! Also, Tyler’s roommate was hilarious! However, I was not expecting the ending and my friend (who saw it with me) got pissed at me and started hitting me in the theater — mostly because we’re a couple of saps and she started crying as soon as she saw the date on the chalkboard. In some respect, I guess I deserved it. Of course, if you’re not looking for a movie that makes you think or feel and/or you’ve never grieved over the death of a significant loved one, then it might be hard for you to relate to this film. It was less about 9/11 and more about the bonds we form with the people in our lives and what we miss out on when we don’t pay attention to them, in my opinion.

  36. “puts its characters (and its audience) through an absurd amount of trauma. There are beatings, arrests, lies, betrayals, heartbreaking moments of bullying, domestic assaults, near-murders, breakups, makeups, tears, hot sexings, apologies, and apologies accepted. At the end of the movie, once everyone’s gone from the meat grinder to the, um, Chicken McNugget meat reconstitution machine and back again, the weather FINALLY breaks”

    So it’s exactly like “Leaving Las Vegas”… ? But without the good parts…

  37. This review, its title — Thank you. I’m off to find an envelope to send in my boxtops and quarter to join the Lindy West fanclub.

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