Before I Go to Sleep

Dir: Rowan Joffé

2014

**

Based on S.J. Watson's bestselling 2011 novel of the same name, Rowan Joffé's film wasn't quite the hit adaptation. For good reason. I haven't read the book but, as I understand it, little was changed other than the fact the main character keeps a video diary in the film instead of the traditional written diary as seen in the book. I'm guessing that the narrative is helped a lot by the inclusion of the written diary, in the film it is more of an afterthought. It's never easy to adapt a book into a visual feature film but without even reading the book, Joffé's version falls at all of the important hurdles. It seems that the locations were more important than the plot itself but the visuals still don't make up for the lack of intrigue, suspense or thrill. The stories big plot twist is far from being a big plot twist, there was only ever the option of two different endings and it was the one I guessed right at the beginning of the film. I can only imagine how brilliant it would have been reading it. Not only is the story a little cliché now compared to most modern thrillers but so too was the style of acting and the clinically stale way the movie is filmed. Everything is muted, the colour, the script, the set, everything. Everything is modern 50's, the colours are light blue and deep green with the occasion walnut finish. The compositions are fantastic, except they are straight out of the Alfred Hitchcock book of film making, nothing new and not even that well done. Mark Strong is given very little to work with, Colin Firth is miscast and Nicole Kidman is particularly lethargic. She glances, she whispers and that is about it. Utterly unconvincing, full of plot holes and simplistic to the point of silly. The good news for everyone involved is that it is so forgettable no one will remember to hold it against them.