Mindscape (AKA Anna)

Dir: Jorge Dorado

2013

**

Mindscape is an impressive debut from Jorge Dorado who said upon the film's release that it was "a kind of cryptic puzzle for the audience to solve", siting Vertigo and Chinatown as his two main influences. However, the truth of it is that for the many wild goose chases thrown at the story (and audience), Mindscape, or Anna as it was known as in North America, is rather bland and utterly predictable. Mark Strong plays a mind detective, with the ability to enter people’s memories. He is given his first case after a long spell of bereavement leave, only to find himself caught in a curious web of secrets and mystery revolving around a gifted young girl called Anna. The idea is relatively sound, it isn't sci-fi heavy, over-complicated and for the most part it feels fairly believable. Everything that was best left unexplained was left unexplained but the big problem is that the film very quickly begins to break its own rules. Certain things are revealed that you would expect a detective to have looked into at the very beginning and came as a disappointing surprise later on in the film, Mark Strong's character also sees things in Anna's memory that she was unaware of as they happened outside of her vision, thus making it impossible for him to have witnessed, it could be argued that this could be part of the eventual twist but I don't buy it, I think it was a continuity error. The last twist was quite clever but also a little dull and I wonder if the ending would have actually made a better starting point. It looks good and Taissa Farmiga performance as Anna is impressive but for a thriller it is hardly thrilling and for a mystery it was pretty uninteresting. Shame really, as it only needs a few changes for it to be a great film but as it is it is a below average addition to its genre.