"The basic problem with this film is that it’s just too cheesy"

You know that annoying bloke in the park, who sits amongst a group of obtuse friends, playing tedious melodic tunes on his guitar with his shirt casually thrown off onto the ground? Well that’s what this film is like.

And if this film bears similarities to such a scenario, then the leading male role of Will (Tobias Menzies) is that irritating bloke in the middle; you just want to poke him in the eye. The actor also has the miraculous ability of being able to talk without looking as though he has actually opened his mouth at any stage.

The leading lady however (Genevieve O’Reilly), playing the part of Eve, was a quite dreary character, with no real purpose about her. In fact, there is a scene later on in the film when her Grandmother Lizzie (Gemma Jones) has a test for Alzheimer’s disease and when asked to remember her Granddaughter’s name, it’s at this point where you realise that you, just like Lizzie, also struggle to answer the question in hand.

The plot-line is quite straightforward. Will meets Eve, and they stay up all night, falling out and in until the break of day when, still without sleep, they have to decide whether there is a future between them, or if the past 24 hours is just a one-off.

One great shortcoming within the story however, is that I don’t believe that the two characters should have met so early on. It didn’t allow for the film to establish itself and for the characters to show us who they really are. Also, it would have been nice to have met some other characters along the way, as the couple are pretty much all that feature throughout and without much profundity and depth to either person - you thrive for other characters to feature which they can bounce off.

The basic problem with this film is that it’s just too cheesy. It’s okay to be quite naff if you have some charm and wit about you, but Forget Me Not was lacking such ingredients and was just all a bit too tacky (portrayed succinctly yet precisely in the scene where Will plays guitar to Eve whilst floating high up on the London Eye, looking over the City at the break of dawn). Not a whiff of irony in sight.

The film, in a similar to vein to ‘Wimbledon’, is a feature that seems to be aimed at an American audience, despite being a British production. The need to show off London’s landmarks, such as Big Ben and the London Eye, and the geographical incorrectness (I didn’t realise that Farringdon was a short walk from Camden…) made the film seem a little too much like a tourist board confection as opposed to being a genuine film about London living.

I also felt that Forget Me Not, would have worked much better as a TV movie. It’s not really strong enough in its script or in the characters themselves to warrant a big-screen release, whereas on the television and a shorter version of the film, it could really have been quite poignant and more enjoyable to watch. As it’s only real outstanding features are that it is well-shot and well-performed.

As, for all my misgivings, you can’t fault the acting performances of O’Reilly and Menzies. They haven’t got much to work with – with two quite bland and featureless characters, but what they have done, they have done well. It’s sincere in its approach and the inclination of the two characters is portrayed well. It’s also interestingly shot and has that innocent independence about it, with its amateurish camera-work one of its only saving graces, showing London off beautifully at dawn.

The film itself reminds me of a lacklustre counterpart to Blue Valentine. Dynamically similar, featuring a couple with a hit and miss relationship – but what Forget Me Not has failed to do which Blue Valentine did so wonderfully, is capture the true essence of the characters’ relationship, thus leading to really feeling any empathy towards them.

For what it is, a simplistic rom-com, it just needs to be more charming and to try and be less profound and pretentious. The scene when the lead roles try and discover the real meaning behind the ‘why did the Chicken cross the road?’ joke is just taking it a step too far.

It’s not a terrible film, it just doesn’t feel complete. It’s a nice idea to see the journey the couple embark on, of a long one-night stand in a deserted yet alluring London – this has much potential, but it’s just lacking any real spark to it, which the genre requires in order to really work. Instead it’s a bit of a nothing film, quite unmemorable and unexceptionable at best. Forget Me Not? I’ve forgotten you already.