Hugh Jackman Probes Your Memories in 'Reminiscence'

There’s nothing I like better than a good detective story. The format, location, characters, and hook are all incidental to The Tropes, and I love them all. The damaged detective. The plucky assistant. The mysterious client. The femme fatale. The lost love. The two cases that are the same case. You can set it in high school or space or genderswap the archetypes and it’s all gravy as far as I’m concerned. So I was all in when I heard Lisa Joy, co-creator of Westworld, is bringing us an entirely new story starring Hugh Jackman and set in a flooded, near-future Miami. Let’s take a look at the trailer for Reminiscence.

We’ve got Hugh Jackman as gritty PI Nick Bannister, an expert at taking people back into their own minds and recovering treasured memories. He allegedly does not have claws.

There’s Thandiwe Newton as the (still unnamed) plucky assistant and, I assume, the one character who talks any sense in the whole picture.

Rebecca Ferguson gets to be the lost love Mae, and possibly femme fatale as well? I’m here for it either way, even if that dress fooled me into thinking her waist was creepily narrow for a hot minute.

And I assume Daniel Wu of Into the Badlands is going to kick serious ass at some point, and look pretty doing it.

The plot can perhaps be summed up as “Inception, but with memories.” Nick Bannister helps clients dive into their own memories; memories of past love, good times, and one assumes Netflix password retrieval. Mae comes to Nick with a seemingly simple request, a passionate love affair ensues, and Nick struggles to discover why another client has violent memories of Mae after her disappearance. Lisa Joy dove into much greater detail over at Deadline, and it’s absolutely worth a read.

Reminiscence drops in theaters and on HBO Max on August 20th.