For­get what you think you know about this movie. And for­get what you think you know about Robert Pat­tin­son. This film is far more than a love story. Plus, Pattinson’s act­ing abil­i­ties are bet­ter than the one par­tic­u­lar role he’s known for playing.

Go into this movie with an open mind, and what you’ll find is an engag­ing film that is simul­ta­ne­ously heart­break­ing and heart­warm­ing. The story and actors swirl together like a per­fect cup of cof­fee with just the right amount of cream and sugar. The sub­tle sweet­ness cuts the under­ly­ing bit­ter­ness. And, in fact, that’s exactly the word I would use to describe Remem­ber Me – bittersweet.

Yes, the love story between Pattinson’s Tyler Hawkins and Emi­lie de Ravin’s Ally Craig is the focus of the movie. But it goes far beyond a sim­ple boy-meets-girl, boy-and-girl-fall-in-love sce­nario. To me, this is a story about for­give­ness and accep­tance. Both Tyler and Ally expe­ri­ence fam­ily tragedies that shape their real­i­ties and change their rela­tion­ships with their fam­i­lies. The true jour­ney in this film is com­ing to terms with those losses and find­ing a way to be happy again.

Pattinson’s per­for­mance in this film should be com­mended. Again, if you watch it with an open mind, I think you will see just how much poten­tial he truly has. He chan­nels the same sort of rest­less anger of James Dean in Rebel with­out a Cause, and, at times, Tyler is vis­i­bly vibrat­ing with it. The way Pat­tin­son plays this rage, to me, wasn’t over the top. In fact, I can think of only one (very pow­er­ful) scene where his voice is even raised.

Instead, he lets the audi­ence feel Tyler’s unset­tled frus­tra­tion, for the most part, in clipped tones and the strong set of his jaw. It is Tyler’s ado­ra­tion of the women in his life that bal­ances his aggres­sion. The way Tyler takes care of his younger sis­ter, Car­o­line, in par­tic­u­lar, is absolutely endearing.

Emi­lie de Ravin’s por­trayal of Ally is a good bal­ance for Tyler. While he tends to inter­nal­ize, she’s quite open. Some of the most charm­ing moments of the movie are when Ally throws Tyler off by doing or say­ing some­thing com­pletely unex­pected. Ruby Jerins is delight­ful as Car­o­line. She is sweet, seri­ous and witty. Her scenes with Pat­tin­son play out like a true brother-sister rela­tion­ship. And Tate Elling­ton, who por­trays Tyler’s best friend and room­mate, Aidan, is a fre­quent scene-stealer. There were times when I didn’t know whether to laugh or be com­pletely hor­ri­fied by Aidan’s schemes. But I was won over by his loy­alty to Tyler.

Chris Cooper and Pierce Bros­nan, who play Ally and Tyler’s fathers, Neil and Charles, are the rocks of this film. Neil doesn’t always do the right thing, but Cooper does an excel­lent job of show­ing the audi­ence that it’s because he doesn’t want to lose any­one else. Sim­i­larly, Charles is some­one you don’t want to like at first. But you come to real­ize that, although he’s going about it in a dif­fer­ent way, he really does want the same thing as Tyler. Bros­nan and Pat­tin­son work well together. There is one par­tic­u­lar scene where it’s easy to see a father-son dynamic between the two of them.

What I liked most about this movie was its sense of real­ity. Just like in the real world, there are ten­der moments and awk­ward moments. There is hap­pi­ness and sad­ness. There are moments that make you cringe and moments that have you laugh­ing at loud. It is real­is­tic. The jour­neys these char­ac­ters take seems real (if a bit sped-up for the sake of a two-hour movie) to me. Even the clut­tered grungi­ness of a walk-up shared by two twenty-something dudes felt realistic.

It is the end­ing of Remem­ber Me that is par­tic­u­larly strik­ing. It is unde­ni­ably sad, but at the same time almost … hope­ful. Again, it’s incred­i­bly bit­ter­sweet. It takes you back to a time many of us remem­ber well, and, for me, it was that con­nec­tion to my own per­sonal mem­o­ries that made this film linger in my mind.

But, I think you should judge for your­self. Put aside your pre­con­ceived notions, and go see Remem­ber Me.

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