Finding something to watch has probably never been easier, but finding something great to watch is a different story. Combing through a streaming service for something worth your time and actually finding it can be almost impossible.
If you’re looking for something interesting and inventive, though, then Reminiscence on Netflix may be the perfect watch for you. The film tells the story of Nick Bannister, a private detective living in a future Miami that has completely flooded. He then discovers an insidious conspiracy while investigating a former client. Here are four reasons you should make time for it while it’s on Netflix.
It’s an original sci-fi story
In an era when almost everything is part of some broader extended universe, Reminiscence is worth checking out because it’s an attempt to do something totally different. It’s an original idea set in a distinct world, and as a result, it feels like a rarity, especially at its midsized budget level.
Produced to debut in theaters, and not on streaming, Reminiscence has all the scale that you might expect from an interesting theatrical experience, and it feels specific and idiosyncratic in a way that very few movies that have been optimized for streaming do.
It will keep you guessing
Like any great mystery, Reminiscence will keep you guessing for the length of its runtime. Part of the movie’s genius is in crafting a fairly straightforward mystery and putting that mystery in a world that is very unlike the one we actually inhabit.
The result is a movie that knows exactly how many twists it has in its bag, and is careful to deploy them in ways that deepen the story, but never upend it or take you out of the world completely. Reminiscence will keep you waiting for the next big reveal, but it knows not to overstay its welcome.
It features the always great Rebecca Ferguson
Either you’re in the cult of Rebecca Ferguson or you just haven’t seen her in anything yet. Here, she plays Mae, the mysterious client that Jackman’s Bannister is looking into when he discovers a more insidious conspiracy. As always, Ferguson is an intriguing mystery here, a modern update on the femme fatale that is granted her own inner life and agency.
Ferguson rose to prominence in part thanks to her performance in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and she’s operating in a similar mode here. The rest of the cast, including Jackman and Thandiwe Newton, are just as great, but Ferguson leaves the most lasting impression.
It’s a Blade Runner/Westworld mash-up
Director Lisa Joy is perhaps best known for being one of the creators behind Westworld, and at its best, that show could build out a world that felt real and immersive. In taking that same sensibility and applying it to a more straightforward noir story, Reminiscence winds up feeling like a cross between the director’s Westworld preoccupations and the sci-fi/noir mash-up that is Blade Runner.
That combination of genres and tones works to the movie’s advantage, creating a world that feels interesting and complicated. It the immerses you in a very specific mystery that inhabits just one small corner of a much larger universe.