As part of Way Too Indie’s ongoing festival coverage, I recently had the opportunity to screen Chuck Norris vs. Communism, a Hot Docs 2015 entry. The excellent documentary focuses on actual events that took place in 1980s Romania. Screening at the 2015 Toronto Jewish Film Festival comes another Romania-set film with historical significance—only this time it’s a dramatization of history, not a documentation of it, and the timeline shifts from the 1980s to the late 1950s. The film is Nae Caranfil’s Closer to the Moon.

During World War II, Jews in Romania joined the anti-Nazi resistance organized by the Communist Party with the expectation that they would enjoy freedom once the Nazis were defeated. After the war, Communism, not freedom spread, and while some members of the resistance went on to become influential members of Romanian society, even that would be temporary. Closer to the Moon, based on a true story, looks at a collection of friends who joined the resistance and went on to bigger things. Then they decided to rob a bank.

That gang is led by Max (Mark Strong), a high-ranking police official, and includes history professor Iorgu (Christian McKay), journalist Razvan (Joe Armstrong), and scientist Dumi (Tim Plester). Rounding out the group is Alice (Vera Farmiga), the lone female and a political science expert.

Their heist, cleverly disguised as a film shoot, is witnessed by a crowd of mesmerized passers-by, including Virgil (Harry Lloyd), a waiter at a nearby restaurant. Virgil becomes so enamored by the film shoot that he goes into the Romanian motion picture business. A year later, his first directorial gig is a propaganda film that opens with the sentencing of the gang he thought was filming a fake robbery, not actually committing a real one. The gang is sentenced to death. Virgil is then charged with filming a complete recreation of the robbery—starring the actual gang—but one that falsifies most of what happened in the name of pushing the Communist agenda. In the process, Virgil befriends Alice, and their relationship becomes key to much more.

Director Caranfil, who also wrote the screenplay, chooses to present Closer to the Moon as a dark comedy, and there are times this approach works well. The gang display excellent chemistry when they’re together, from high-minded debates to carousing with prostitutes, it’s all done with political discourse. With an alpha male, a smart and sexy dame, high-quality supporting members, a well-planned caper, and always a good time, they’re not resistance veterans, they’re the Shabbat Pack. Filming the robbery reenactment, a notion so preposterous that it could only be based in reality, is also perfect for a comedic take. All of this is fantastic.

The film struggles, though, when it expands beyond the gang. A recurring gag involving the drunkenness of a legendary Romanian film director (Allan Corduner) is tired from the first flat joke, and the inclusion of Virgil’s landlords, an old Jewish couple with levity to their parts, seems to be set up from the first scene to serve as a key moment at the end of the film. There are also forced threads (to call them subplots would be to give them too much credit) involving Max’s wife and her brother. A pair of romances and unexpected melodrama involving Alice also serve as convenient plot points that distract from the overall story.

These things not only hinder the better parts of the film, they prevent an interesting conceit from finding life. Amidst the politics and propaganda, one Communist official, Holban (Anton Lesser), yearns to know why the gang stole the money. No one else cares about this. They stole something they didn’t need, knowing the possible result, and the not knowing the motive behind it gnaws at Holban. He even reaches the point where his obsession jeopardizes the film he has been charged with producing. This story could have been a great counterbalance to the gang’s antics, and Lesser is marvelous in the role, but it gets lost in the noise of the filmmaker’s other dalliances.

In addition to Lesser, performance standouts include Lloyd and Farmiga, but the film is carried on the shoulders of Strong, who is more than up to the task of playing the rebel-turned-cop-turned-criminal, with a motivation to risk his life that he makes you want to get in line to support.

Part heist flick and part history lesson, Closer to the Moon is best viewed as an entertaining, albeit flawed, entry in the sub-sub-genre of films about the aftermath of WWII.

Based on S. J. Watson’s highly successful debut novel, Before I Go to Sleep follows the intriguing story of Christine (Nicole Kidman) who, suffering from an acute form of amnesia, wakes up every morning not knowing who she is, where she is, or who the strange man (Colin Firth) laying in the bed beside her is.

Cinema is a medium that has proven on many occasions to be adept at conveying the manipulation of memory. The editing of images and sounds, unsurprisingly lends itself to conveying the confusion that comes with memory disorders like amnesia. It’s also a brilliant template for a thriller, as films such as Christopher Nolan’s Memento have proven. With a strong cast led by Mark Strong and Colin Firth, still riding high after his success with The King’s Speech, director Rowan Joffe would seemingly have all the elements for a great film.

However, despite a promising start, Before I Go to Sleep is sadly let down by a number of flaws which stop it from lacking the sharp edge and depth that could have led to it’s success.

The most apparent of these flaws is an emphasis of plot over character. This may not be surprising considering the norms of the thriller genre, unfortunately it leaves the film feeling more like a Sunday tea-time melodrama, than the fascinating character thriller it could have been.

Few of the film’s characters are given the time to breathe any life into what becomes a rather bland drama. This is particularly the case with Mark Strong’s Doctor Nash, who for all the depth the character is given might as well be called Dr Plot Exposition. Claire, who seems poised to be a significant character, is also frustratingly given very little screen time. The one character who is given life, thanks to a strong performance from Colin Firth, is Ben, Christine’s husband. Firth clearly relishes the chance to play against his reputation as the warm, cuddly, nice guy of cinema and he hits the mark brilliantly in most of his scenes. The scenes in which he reveals his dark side, and attempts to manipulate Christine are especially well-played, but his strong presence only seems to call attention to the weakness of Christine’s character, and gives him little to play off.

The film works best in the tense scenes approaching the film’s climax. Joffe, channeling Kubrick’s The Shining with long nightmarish shots of hotel corridors and dark shadows behind doors, brings the film to life in these scenes, awakening Before I Go To Sleep (if you will forgive the pun) from its slumber. Also, while Nicole Kidman may butcher romantic or complex scenes with a hacksaw with her often cringe-inducing melodramatic acting, she is clearly one of the best in the business at doing the kind of bug-eyed terror required for horror and this heightens the drama of these scenes. There is also some clever directing amongst the clumsy dialogue and thinly drawn characters. An example of this is the use of a digital camera to record Christine’s memories of her day before she forgets it all. It works well and is a clever way of representing her diary entries in the books.

The overriding feeling when watching this film is that too much of it has been left on the cutting room floor, it’s a film that feels rushed. As is often the case with thrillers, the best policy is to slowly drip-feed the film’s twists and turns, but Before I Go to Sleep fails in this department, often jumping the gun and leaving a series of revelations which drive the plot forward but lacking in the impact they could have had if Joffe was a little more patient. The film’s abrupt ending is also likely to leave many feeling cheated of a satisfying climax.

Overall it’s a watchable film and, in some places, even a pleasurable thriller, but too often it fails to rise above mediocre and that is its biggest downfall.

Imagine waking up everyday with no new memories. Your mind a complete blank slate except for everything you knew up until a traumatic accident. Until one day, someone reveals a new truth to you that forces you to investigate everything you had thought to be reliable. No, don’t say Memento, this isn’t Memento (probably); it’s Before I Go To Sleep, the new film from the writer of 28 Weeks Later and The American, Rowan Jaffe.

The upcoming mystery/thriller Before I Go To Sleep stars Nicole Kidman as the amnesiatic woman, and Colin Firth and Mark Strong as the other points on a love triangle. Before I Go To Sleep seems to have implemented a video camera device for Nicole’s character to leave herself messages, and likely preventing Kidman from needing to ink several body tattoos as notes-to-self. The movie is based on the novel of the same name, the first published by English author S. J. Watson.

Before I Go to Sleep will be released in the UK on September 5th and the US on September 12th, check out the trailer below:

Before I Go To Sleep trailer