Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Anne-Marie Duff, Dean Charles Chapman, Adam Levy, Jing Lusi, Flynn MacArthur, Charlie Gardner, Llewella Gideon, Rosie MacPherson, Hannah Blamires, Chris Cowlin, Kevin Hudson, Nick Turner.

For Christine Lucas, every day is a fresh start. Where others might resolve to begin the day anew and go out of their way in which to make other’s lives better, for Christine Lucas, each day is a torture, a realisation that she has no idea who she is or why she looks older than her suggested mind age of in her 20s.

For Christine Lucas, being the victim of a brutal and savage attack has left her as an amnesiac. Whatever she learns during the day is wiped out when she falls asleep. It is a thought that as audiences make their way to see Before I Go To Sleep that they might want to start keeping a video diary of their own just in case the very worst happens.

Before I Go To Sleep might not be the greatest premise for a thriller but it works, the deftness of the camera work, the speed of the action, which glides along as if taking a stroll through the nearest park before turning into a sprint finish to get back to the house before the air turns electric and the heavens let go of a months- worth of rain in a single hour, and the very convincing lead cast make it a worth- while film in which to immerse yourself into for a couple of hours.

There must be something about working alongside Colin Firth in recent times that brings out the very best in Nicole Kidman. A woman of undoubted charm and sincerity and a superb grip on her acting ability, Ms. Kidman has perhaps has had the misfortune of being involved in some absolutely brilliant films but far too many stinkers for a woman of quality. Aside From The Hours, The Others and her magnificent appearance in Moulin Rouge, up until The Railway Man she had hit a run of poor films in which to avoid at all costs, concluding in the dreadful and in many ways shameful Grace of Monaco.

The Railway Man and now this new film, co-incidentally a film that stars Colin Firth alongside her, has bought out that beast of a range that audiences saw begging to be let out in the 1990s when she worked alongside her then husband Tom Cruise and which seemed to peak in 2001. If possible Ms. Kidman should either maintain that acting alongside Mr. Firth should be a pre-requisite of any film she appears in for the foreseeable future or she carries a small veil of his scent in a handily placed bottle just to remind her that is a very talented woman who somehow finds herself in poor choices of film.

Colin Firth, as Ben Lucas, gives a performance of tremendous brooding malevolence that is matched in its sincerity by fellow actor Mark Strong as Dr. Nash. Whilst Colin Firth never seems to ever give a bad performance, never mind what film he is in, in Before I Go To Sleep, as in The Railway Man  he is on the type of form that, never mind Nicole Kidman bottling his scent, women up and down the country will still be dangerously swooning over him. It is the quiet suave sophistication that he exudes that makes his role in this film so eye catching.

There is no way in which you will have time to catch 40 winks during Before I Go To Sleep, whilst not the greatest thriller in the world it has more than its fair share of moments in which sleeping cheaply on midnight show will not be tolerated.

Ian D. Hall