ManicDDaily

Continuing briefly with my Pattinson binge (and I promise I’ll stop soon), I’m happy to report that the sinking feeling I felt in my stomach when contemplating seeing the new movie Remember Me really did not need to be so pronounced.

I’ve seen it now and my stomach is okay.

Yes, it feels way too early (especially to a New Yorker) to see 9/11 used as a kind of stupid plot device.  (I guess some screen writers will go to any length to get family members to talk to each other.)

Yes, the movie does make New York out to be a horrible place, where violence not only breaks out on random street corners but also in board rooms,  bookstores, private school classrooms, and lower school slumber parties (not to mention in nearly everyone’s home.)   Oddly, the most peaceful place depicted in the movie is probably the jail cell where Rob a/k/a Tyler Hawkins winds up every once in a while.

And yes, Pattinson’s hair is on the flat side, and he looks beaten up for much of the film.

Still, well, Rob has a certain charm.  He is not embarrassing.  That’s a pretty low standard, and frankly, it’s also unfair, because really he’s better than “not embarrassing.”   He simply has, well, this certain charm, which is enlarged by an ability to project a kind of sweetness.   He’s extremely likeable.  (The camera loves him, but he is able to seem unself-conscious of his looks.)  This caring quality seems especially genuine in the scenes with his movie sister, Caroline (played by Ruby Jerins) who is winningly awkward and knowing at once.

Granted, all the characters in the movie are pretty typed.   They hardly need to open their mouths in order for us to know their parts.

And, granted, there is much that is difficult to swallow for even the most willing to suspend belief.  (If the sister lives in a town house in Greenwich Village, why are they always up at the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park?   How can those other little girls be so catty when Caroline is dropped off and picked up by Robert Pattinson?  How can New Yorkers with no clear lock on their door never ever get burglarized? )

One of the most refreshing  of these odd details is that Tyler (RPatz), the incipient young writer and diarist, always writes by hand in little crumpled notebooks.   The only computers shown are not in the NYU student centers or in student apartments, but in  his father’s corporate office.    Perhaps this is meant to show that the movie took place at an earlier time?   Unfortunately, that’s a point you’re not really allowed to forget.