Before I Go To Sleep [2014] ★★½

This thriller starring Nicole Kidman is a psychological stunt, but a damn intriguing one. Kidman gives a solid performance as Christine Lucas, a woman who suffers from a severe case of amnesia. She wakes up every day thinking she is still in college only to be confronted in the mirror with the face of a 40-year-old. Her husband Ben (Colin Firth) is desperately trying to protect her, unaware that Dr Nash (Mark Strong) is secretly treating her. And wait, the husband himself may be keeping secrets from her. Too much? And then some. But writer/director Rowan Joffe (“28 Weeks Later”, “The American”), working from a best-selling novel by S.J Watson, keeps you riveted even as his script defies credibility at times. The ending is quite predictable. But until then, watching Kidman trying to put the pieces together emerges as a pulse-pounding experiment in psychological terror.

Rating: 2.5/4