Mary Higgins Clark's Remember Me (1995) starring Kelly McGillis, Cotter Smith, Shanna Reed, Michael T. Weiss, Stephen McHattie, Amy Hargreaves directed by Michael Switzer Movie Review

Mary Higgins Clark's Remember Me (1995)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Kelly McGillis as Menly Nichols in Mary Higgins Clark's Remember Me (1995)

Remember McGillis

"Remember Me" is the sort of movie which leads you to want to read Mary Higgins Clark's book which it's adapted from. Why? Because you can tell that in adapting "Remember Me" into a movie a lot has been left out, it has that disjointed feeling of being just the important bits with all the flowing connectivity dropped because of budget and time constraints. But whilst coming across as just those important bits the actual quality of the mystery still shines through and it is that coupled with a believable performance from Kelly McGillis which keeps you watching.

Two years after an incident at a level crossing which saw her young son killed and Menly Nichols (Kelly McGillis - The Babe) was committed having tried to take her own life things are slowly getting back to normal. Menly and husband Adam (Cotter Smith) are together again with a baby daughter and they are spending a month up at an old house in New England. But whilst there things start to unsettle Menly as she is told of ghost stories and starts hearing her dead son's voice. And to add to her trouble Adam's girlfriend from before they married, Elaine (Shanna Reed), lives nearby and is still very feely touchy with Adam.

Shanna Reed as Elaine Archer in Mary Higgins Clark's Remember Me (1995)

The good things about "Remember Me" is that the quality of Mary Higgins Clark's writing still comes through because whilst it appears much has been left out in adapting her story into this TV movie the actual mystery is still very strong. It doesn't start that way and after the first half hour it feels a bit jumbled, we have the death of Menly's son, her committal to a hospital, the ambiguity of the friendship between Adam and Elaine, Adam and Menly vacationing at this old Victorian house, ghostly figures, the old neighbours, Scott who is being accused of killing his wife and a seemingly vindictive cop. There is a lot going on and because all of this is crammed in without the bits which allow it to flow more naturally you do wonder how it is going to all connect. It does and we get a decent ending to all this mystery as events conspire to make Menly believe she is hearing her dead son's voice.

It means that the actual basic storyline to "Remember Me" is simple and that is whether or not Menly is crumbling and struggling to cope as she becomes increasingly paranoid. But then we do have all these other things going in an almost smoke and mirrors sort of way from Elaine's feelings for Adam to Adam defending Scott over the murder of his wife. And whilst in the end the way everything pieces together comes across contrived it is only because so much has been left out in turning the story into a movie.

Now whilst the intriguing mystery keeps you watching so do the performances or to be precise the performance of Kelly McGillis as Menly. McGillis plays her right on the edge so there is always this element that something could push her over into being crazy at any moment and it is fantastic because as things start to conspire against her the more paranoid she becomes. Other than McGillis's performance the rest are sadly quite ordinary which is more to do with the fact that their characters end up suffering in the adaptation and end up one dimensional.

What this all boils down to is that "Remember Me" as a movie is alright but not brilliant and in many ways typical of TV movies. But despite being hacked about to be made into a movie the quality of Mary Higgins Clark's writing and her mystery still shines through and coupled with a good performance from Kelly McGillis makes "Remember Me" watchable.


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