Hugh Jackman Confronts a Mysterious Past in Trippy HBO Max Trailer for ‘Reminiscence’

“Nothing is more addictive than the past.”

For a guy whose professional life began humbly as a PE teacher in England, Hugh Jackman has had a hell of an acting career, including Tony awards for musical roles and multiple acting award nominations for movies like Logan

Warner Bros. / Video Still

What stands out when you look at his IMDB or Wiki is the sheer variety of roles he takes on, and it appears that with Reminiscence, his upcoming movie directed by Westworld writer and director Lisa Joy, he’s going into Blade Runner and Inception-style twisty sci-fi — with a touch of detective noir.

Warner Bros.

As the trailer reveals, in Reminiscence Jackman is a private detective living in a flooded and war-torn future — one so depressing that nostalgia has overtaken society to a pathological degree. “Nothing is more addictive than the past,” he says in voiceover. 

Here’s more in the form of the Warner Bros. story synopsis:

From writer/director/producer Lisa Joy comes Warner Bros. Pictures’ action thriller “Reminiscence,” starring Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson and Thandiwe Newton. Nick Bannister (Jackman), a private investigator of the mind, navigates the darkly alluring world of the past by helping his clients access lost memories.

Living on the fringes of the sunken Miami coast, his life is forever changed when he takes on a new client, Mae (Ferguson). A simple matter of lost and found becomes a dangerous obsession. As Bannister fights to find the truth about Mae’s disappearance, he uncovers a violent conspiracy, and must ultimately answer the question: how far would you go to hold on to the ones you love?

Editing movie trailers is an art unto itself — often a terrible film can be preceded by fantastically intriguing previews. Here, Lisa Joy’s cinematography provides a promising Christopher Nolan-like vibe and striking imagery of a very plausible-looking flooded future. 

Reminiscence hits theaters everywhere on August 20, 2021. It will be available on HBO Max in UHD, HDR10, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos one month later.

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