Remember Me

With every non-Twilight role he chooses, Robert Pattinson seems determined to wipe from our minds the popular image of him as Edward Cullen, the sensitive, chivalrous teen vampire in the blockbuster adaptations of Mormon author Stephenie Meyers’ young-adult novels. Last year, he played a decadent, bisexual Salvador Dali in Little Ashes, Paul Morrison’s drama about the artist’s formative years in Madrid; in his latest film, the romantic drama Remember Me, he smokes, drinks, has premarital sex, and engages in a variety of other unwholesome activities that would surely appall the saintly Edward. And he isn’t half bad, truth be told. Pattinson’s turn as 21-year-old Tyler, a rebellious, resentful child of privilege who falls for Ally (Emilie de Ravin), the bright, pugnacious daughter of a cop (Chris Cooper) — the same cop who just days prior busted his face up — is easily the best part of Remember Me’s otherwise mediocre ensemble piece. The film works perfectly well when director Allen Coulter concentrates on the romantic bond forged by its two troubled leads, but he has much higher aspirations — American Beauty-level aspirations — and he's ultimately sabotaged by his vaulting ambition, overloading the action with hair-trigger melodrama that leaves the film's cast in a permanent state of hackneyed hysterics.