Staging of a Flashback
It's been seven years she was found guilty of murdering her husband and now Regina (Mimi Rogers - Someone to Watch Over Me) finds herself transferred to a male prison on the eve of her planned execution. It is there that she meets Colin (Billy Zane - Only You), her guard for the night, who is so fascinated by her and whether or not she is guilty that he actually volunteered for the job. Whilst Regina had expected a quiet last night she finds herself reflecting on her marriage and how she imagined and acted out murdering her husband so many times that when it came to doing the deed it was second nature. But she also finds herself strangely interested in Colin and what would make him so interested in her.
"Reflections on a Crime" relies on one thing; whether or not you find the character of Regina intriguing enough to want to know more about what she did, why she did it and why she seems not only remorseless but at peace with the fact in a few hours she will be executed. As such whilst we have John Terry as Regina's husband who through various flashbacks we learn has a morbid fascination with his own death and Billy Zane basically being the voice of the audience as he gets to know Regina the whole movie really rests on Mimi Rogers. And Mimi Rogers brings out the cold, remorseless nature of her character quite brilliantly as well as the whole acceptance of her imminent death.
But whilst there is no denying that Mimi Rogers delivers an incredibly strong performance I can't say that "Reflections on a Crime" is that engaging. Here is a movie which flits between Regina's conversations with Colin as she counts down the hours with flashbacks to various events in her life. The trouble is that the flashbacks are all over the place, there is no easy to follow time line to them as we go from a dinner party to an argument to Regina being in hospital suffering a bleed, back to the dinner party. It makes it a movie which, as I already said, relies on the intrigue of Regina as a character to keep you willing to stick with and make sense of the disjointed flashbacks but for me the character isn't enough to achieve that.
What this all boils down to is that in some ways "Reflections on a Crime" makes me think that this would work well as a stage play, the sort where on one side of the stage you have Regina in prison and then on the other side we have the lights come up for the various flashbacks. As such maybe if you are a fan of stage plays which are all about an intriguing character then this may entertain, but for me and maybe others the disjointed nature of the flashbacks is too off putting.
