Unsolicited Reviews

The Final Cut

An intriguing tale about the nature of memory and how it shapes lives and relationships.

The “Zoe implant” makes perfect memory possible. Implanted in childhood, it can be extracted at death to provide an edited viewing of a life—a “re-memory”.

Alan is one of the best “cutters”—re-memory editors—in the business, but he’s haunted by a childhood event for which he feels unbearable guilt. Perhaps he sees a measure of redemption in what he does as he edits out the “mistakes” from other’s lives, leaving a palatable remembrance for the subject’s loved ones.

While cutting the memories of a high-profile lawyer, Alan sees a ghost from his past and embarks on a quest to discover whether that ghost is real. However the price of the truth may be higher than he thinks…

Robin Williams has proved on many occasions he’s a fine actor and far, far more than a comedian. In this film, he has little chance to display his considerable talents as Alan is quite a faceless character.

The central premise—the Zoe implant—is a very interesting idea and approaches good sci-fi in that it posits a tech idea and plays with the societal implications. However the themes are explored in a heavy-handed fashion; there’s very little subtlety in the dialogue or the character’s reactions. It’s hard to form an emotional attachment to any character which, of course, weakens the exposition of ideas.

Despite these criticisms the film looks great and generally works well. It’s a cut above most films packaged as sci-fi.

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