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REGRESSION [Canada, Spain - English]

Bruce Kenner (Ethan Hawke) is a pushy, arrogant detective in Minnesota, who believes that young Angela Gray (Emma Watson) is the victim of demonic rituals and abused by her father, John Gray (David Dencik). The film opens pretty promisingly with John handing in himself at the police station, admitting to his daughter's accusations of his unspeakable crime, though has no recollection of the incident. Assisted by psychologist Dr Raines (David Thewlis), Kenner delves into the tortured landscape of repressed memory, convinced that answers lie therein.

The 1990 murky set-up, dark in mood and pulse reminiscing thrillers from the 90s like Final Analysis (Phil Joanou) and Sliver (Phillip Noyce), all that pan out alright with me. In fact, Spanish writer/director Alejandro Amenábar's inspiration for this film is drawn from the wave of satanic abuse scares and cases that haunted America in the late 80s - early 90s, added with the use of controversial therapy technique known as regression, which claims to heal patients by unearthing deeply buried memories through hypnotism; there are enough reasons to like this thriller. In a way I can't blame critics for coming down hard on this latest piece of work from Amenábar. Known to compose the music for some of his movies as well as write and direct, Amenábar has after all given us cinematic gems like The Others in 2001, which won 8 Goyas at the Venice Film Festival in that year including Best Picture and Best Director. Much of the initial promising premise kind of dwindled into very cliché moments involving ballerina music boxes, black cats, creaking doors and mysterious silent calls to forewarn some gruesome deaths. Amenábar has also shared his deliberate intention to mix up genres which in this case thriller and horror, but somehow becomes an issue for most critics. The film was panned for the director's over-focusing on scaring the audience at the expense of the credibility of the plot and script. Personally I have no issues with genre mash-ups, but the execution better be uncommonly spectacular. In this case, the effort does fall rather flat, and the final twist which the story leaves the audience waiting, fails to deliver gasps and awe. 

Hawke has somehow discovered of late his effective portrayal in angst and aggressive roles, and he shows here a rather effortless mastery fitting into Kenner's world. His performance becomes to me the pivotal grip in the film where we witness Kenner's psychological journey from audacious crumbling down to vulnerable. So much so, it appears that the rest of the cast are rather pointless whether we have Hermione Granger as the abused victim or Remus Lupin as the plucky psychologist. Reason being, their characters are hugely underplayed, it's purely Hawke's stage from beginning to end. Secondly, am I the only one who wasn't thoroughly impressed with Watson's performance, especially her less convincing American accent? Just like how hard her fellow Harry Potter co-star Daniel Radcliffe has been trying to move on from their gargantuan roles which made them multi-millionaires before even reaching the age of twenty, Watson has been venturing into diverted roles including the pot-smoking underage drinking Nikki in The Bling Ring (2013). However I find her portrayal of the emotional and convoluted sides of Angela rather plain and mediocre at best.

Rating : C+

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