Before I Go to Sleep

A glance at their Oscar-adorned mantelpieces should tell Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth that they can do better than Before I Go to Sleep, a tawdry psychological thriller that’s not worthy of their talents.

In fact, the high-profile leads — who collaborated earlier this year in The Railway Man — might be the only element that rescued this incoherent adaptation of a novel by S.J. Watson from cable television or the direct-to-DVD scrap heap.

It’s an intimate domestic melodrama in which Kidman plays Christine, whose amnesia causes her to wake up every morning with a clean slate. Her routine includes being introduced to men who call themselves her husband (Firth) and her doctor (Mark Strong), who ostensibly has been working to piece together the truth behind the traumatic incident that caused her condition without her husband’s knowledge.

However, it soon becomes clear that at least one of the men — if not both — have something to hide. Christine keeps a video diary that gives her some insight, and she manages to track down an old friend (Anne-Marie Duff) who also fills in some of the gaps about what happened and who she can trust.

Perhaps director Rowan Joffe (Brighton Rock), who also adapted the screenplay, neglected to remember that amnesia is one of the laziest plot devices out there. In this specific scenario, the absurd gimmick allows characters to directly explain the most basic details about their lives and relationships to one another because, you know, how else would Christine figure it out?

It’s difficult to feel the necessary sympathy for Christine, in part because Kidman just spends most of her screen time crying and looking bewildered. And once the identity of her attacker is revealed, a realistic motive remains cloudy. But such gaps in logic are rampant, including a lack of explanation for the medical reasons behind Christine’s condition, or why she’s allowed to live at home instead of in a facility where she can receive proper care.

Joffe attempts to trump up the tension with some cheap scare tactics, an atmospheric score, a few obvious twists and red herrings, and some convenient nightmarish flashbacks from Christine’s past that yield clues. Yet he doesn’t supply sufficient motivation to care about his heroine or her plight.

Rated R, 92 minutes.