Memento
Happy Birthday, Memento! It’s 21 years since Memento came to Australian viewers 1 as a masterpiece of cinematic subjectivity directed by Christopher Nolan. Once seen, it’s hard to forget the vengeful amnesiac, Leonard Shelby, played by an emaciated, strung out,…
The Beautiful Fall
The Premise Every 179 days, a young man named Robbie forgets everything about his past due to a rare neurological condition. Thus the premise of the novel thrusts us into fantasy amnesia, a whole sub-genre of amnesia fiction in itself, and fine by me….
Room 15
I caught up with the best-selling English author of the novel Room 15, Charles Harris to discuss his writer’s life, views on amnesia in fiction and more. Room 15 is a psychological thriller, with a case of amnesia at its centre. It was released…
Still Alice
Alice Howland is a linguistics expert and professor teaching at Harvard University, thus when she forgets what the word ‘lexicon’ means while delivering a lecture, it is more telling than if someone else were to have forgotten it. So begins 50-year-old Alice’s downward slide…
The Moonstone
If you think the first English detective novel, written in Dickens’s day, would be too dated to bother reading, think again. The Moonstone remains to this day a cracking good yarn, offering engaging and colourful characters, a dark mystery tinged with the exotic and…
Pew
As I read Pew my opinion of it swung wildly. One minute I thought it ground-breaking and brilliant, the next it disappointed. I do not usually have two minds about books, but then Pew is not your usual book. The premise The first-person narrator…
Me and Jason Bourne
Dare I compare myself with Jason Bourne? We may seem like an unlikely pair considering Jason Bourne is a sharp shooting fictional character in an American spy thriller and I am a pacifist woman living a quiet life in Australia. Yet what we share…
Spellbound, 1945
Spellbound is fabulous as a film in itself and if you want to get a feel for the history of amnesia in cinema. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this brilliant psychological thriller is based on a novel, The House of Doctor Edwards (1927) by Hilary Saint…
Latest film & TV
See below for a quick look at some of the amnesia stories streaming on TV. I don’t have access to all things amnesia, so feel free to email me and alert me to your amnesia finds.
Surface
TV series produced by Reese Witherspoon.Genre: psychological thriller.Released: July 29, 2022.Starring: Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Sophie, Oliver Jackson-Cohen as James, Stephan James as Baden.Country: US.Australian viewers: Apple TV.Rotten Tomatoes: A 53% approval rating with an average rating of 6.3/10, based on…
Too Close
Three-part TV miniseries 2021.Psychological thriller.Director: Susan Tully.Australian viewers: SBS OnDemand.Cast: Emily Watson as Dr. Emma Robertson, Forensic psychiatrist assigned to the Mortensen case. Denise Gough as Connie Mortensen, Robertson’s patient, is labelled the ‘yummy mummy monster’ in the press. Thalissa…
Awake – Wa’eet
TV series.Country: Lebanon.Released: 2021.Creator: Nadia Tabbara.Starring Patrick Chemali, Jacques Maroun and Marie-Lou Nahhas.Australian viewers: SBS on Demand.Note: Of the many productions called Awake, look out for the Arabic name Wa’eet. Awake is about a young woman, Dana who wakes up…
The Tourist
Six-part TV series.Genre: mix thriller drama/comedy.Released: Jan 2022.Starring: Jamie Dornan as The Man/Elliot Stanley, Danielle Macdonald as Probationary Constable Helen Chambers. Shalom Brune-Franklin as Luci Miller/Victoria, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Billy Nixon and Alex Dimitriades as Kosta Panigiris.Country: the UK,…